Tag Archives: Kingfisher Airlines

The financial woes at Kingfisher Airlines continue. Despite carrying the maximum number of domestic passengers, over dues are piling up. In some cases cheques issued by the airline are bouncing, salary and other cost cutting measures are making employees like pilots leave the airline to join competitors. This photo from Digital Airliners on Flickr encapsulates the three stages of Kingfisher’s …

The month of April has been bringing signs of a slowing down in the economic slow down. Industrial production, railways freight loading (indicative of raw materials for the core sector of steel, cement, mining), employment, stock markets and even inflation rates have moved back in to positive territory. While it a month does not make a trend, there is a …

Kingfisher Airlines recently became the first Indian airline to get on board the social nano-blogging service Twitter. Following the success of JetBlue and Southwest, quite a few airlines have joined Twitter, including British Airways, Qatar Airways, Gulf Air, and United Airlines. While I laud the bold initiatives by Kingfisher Airlines, at present it is only broadcasting adverts and updates — …

I went spotting last week and managed to get close enough to get some close-up pictures of pilots during landing. I was rather surprised to see all the Airbus pilots leaning forward when the one picture of a Boeing pilot shows him sitting back comfortably. It will be interesting to hear comments on the differences. Any pilots reading Bangalore Aviation? …

The past week has been an incident filled “odd” one for Bengaluru International Airport (BIA). On Monday (day 1 of the week), a Kingfisher Airlines Airbus A320 skidded off runway 27 in rain and high winds and damaged runway lights and its landing gear, forcing the airport to shut down the runway during the peak international flights period for an …

A Kingfisher Airlines Airbus A320-232 VT-KFT performing flight IT 432 from Kolkata to Bangalore via Hyderabad veered and skidded off the runway at Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) due to rain and high winds. There were 138 passengers including crew on board at the time of the incident, which happened at 21:35 hrs (16:05Z) yesterday. An airline source informed PTI “The …

This weekend was not very conducive to spotting. The winds came out of the west making the active runway at Bengaluru International Airport 27. With an east west alignment, the only time to take pictures is in the late afternoon when the sun has moved to the west. In the process of exploration, I discovered that Google maps is outdated …

March continued the gloomy news for the domestic airline industry in India, with a decline. For the month of March 2009 domestic passenger count stood at 3.15 million down from 3.32 million in February and 3.31 million in January. Despite Kingfisher airlines continuing to be the largest domestic airline in India with almost 27% market share in March and 27.27% …

A group of friends including my dear friend, Photoyogi, went plane spotting at the Bengaluru International Airport recently. Yogi captured this amazing shot of a Kingfisher Airlines A321-200 registration VT-KFY on short finals to runway 09 right through a granite outcrop. Kingfisher on the rocks, get high without a drink. Enjoy the picture, and please remember the copyright rests with …

Kingfisher Airlines prides itself as the “King of Good Times”, full of glamour and model quality cabin crew. A British trio took things too literally and decide to have a “bang” from Bangalore. As per The Sun newspaper, model and cover-girl Sarah Hannon and her boyfriend Daniel Melia boarded IT001 from Bangalore to London Heathrow. Through the flight Sarah Hannon …

2008 was the year reality struck home in the Indian airline industry. One whiff of the downturn exposed the lack of robust business planning, and abundance of financial vulnerability of Indian carriers, leaving all of them battered and bruised, some more than others. We saw mass-scale defaulting on payments by carriers in India to everyone from airports to aircraft manufacturers. …

Kingfisher Airlines recently released its Summer schedule which comes in to effect from March 29th. Some of the highlights : Introduction of double daily flights between Mumbai and Vadodara. Introduction of direct daily flight between Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram. Introduction of direct daily flight service between Aurangabad and Hyderabad to ensure Aurangabad is connected to Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore via Hyderabad. …

Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines and SpiceJet are the only three publicly listed airlines in India, and are required to release their quarterly results. Using the results of the third quarter which ended December 31, 2008, I compiled three graphs to analyse their expenses. Depreciation and interest is included as part of expenses and other income is included as part of …

I came across some interesting photos by fellow Flickr user A380spotter. ATR42-500 MSN503 VT-ADI in the old Air Deccan livery, still sporting the common man by R.K. Laxman. ATR72-212A MSN785 F-WWED supposed to be VT-DKL. This aircraft is painted in the Kingfisher livery, but obviously delivery has not been taken. The aircraft has been stored at Toulouse since early 2008 …

This photograph by Digital Airliners taken just two days ago at Toulouse shows two Airbus A340-500’s. One is still painted in Kingfisher Airlines’ colours. Kingfisher had ordered five A340-500s, but defaulted on taking delivery last year. Three were diverted to Nigeria’s Arik Air, but it appears the balance two have become the dreaded white tail for Airbus, i.e. a jet …

The financial woes at Kingfisher Airlines, forcing them to divert ordered aircraft to other airlines, continue. First it was the Airbus A340-500’s meant for the flagship Bangalore to San Francisco “Silicon to Silicon” flights, that were diverted to Arik when Kingfisher could not take delivery. Now it is the turn of Turkish Airlines THY, who is taking delivery of four …

Kingfisher is the largest defaulting private airline in India, and this has finally caught up with it. State owned oil marketing companies (OMCs), who claim they are owed about Rs. 1,000 Crore ($200 million), have enforced ‘cash and carry’ payment terms on the airline, since it has not cleared its dues, even after the extended 90 day payment terms. Kingfisher …

The Mint is reporting that GoAir recently started offering uniform fares, inclusive of surcharges and other taxes, for purchases made 21 days in advance. For short sectors, defined as less than 750 kms travel distance, the airline will charge Rs 1,700 a ticket and Rs 2,700 for distances greater than 750 kms. According to the company statement, in effect a …

2008 was a torrid year for domestic airlines in India, as recently released figures by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) show. Domestic passenger traffic for the year 2008 fell 5% from 42.58 million to 40.77 million (Fig. 1), driven by the increase in fuel costs, and the massive hikes in air fares, which are yet to fully retreat, and …

I forwarded my “eureka” moment to Dr. Vijay Mallya about servicing the Kangaroo route via Mumbai, given the imminent withdrawal of Qantas from the Mumbai-Sydney route. He very kind replied, and my thanks to him. Dear Mr. Agarwal, Thank you for your email of 6 January, for your good wishes and compliments on the launch of our international operations. I …