Kingfisher Airlines has set a target for August 27 to fly overseas routes two days after Deccan Airways turns five years old and becomes eligible for flying abroad. Kingfisher?s first route would be Bangalore to San Francisco aboard a brand new Airbus A 340. Officially, though the company is still awaiting permission to fly on overseas routes.
Kingfisher is expected to complete its functional merger (demerger as per the Accenture report) with Deccan in March. ?Domestic routes will remain untouched and will rise in time,? an official from Kingfisher said.
According to sources, Kingfisher Airlines would be the holding company under which there will be two carriers – Kingfisher Airlines, which would operate the full service long-haul routes and Kingfisher Deccan for low-cost short haul operations. ?Kingfisher would service the Europe and US routes, while Kingfisher Deccan will serve the Asia and Middle-East routes,? the official said. The airline would subsequently start three more international routes after the Bangalore-San Francisco route becomes operational. These include another Airbus A340 connecting Delhi to New York and the A 330s connecting Delhi and Mumbai to London, all of which would be non-stop. The aircraft for these flights are expected to be delivered from April and would go to Air India in a wet lease deal till Kingfisher is ready to use them.
Kingfisher and Deccan currently operate a combined fleet of 78 Airbus and ATR planes. Kingfisher has 106 Airbus aircraft on order — including five superjumbo A380s — while Deccan has 54 of the Airbus A320 family aircraft pending delivery.