Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines is bullish on expanding the list of international destinations on its network, following an overwhelming response to its Bangalore-London and Mumbai-London services introduced recently. Despite the global economic downturn, the company is going ahead with its plans and will start services to at least seven new destinations during the year, said Siva Ramachandran, vice-president (global sales), Kingfisher Airlines.
The company is also looking at more alliances and code-sharing pacts with global airline companies, not only to optimise capacity utilisation but also to increase business volumes. In this regard, it will tie up with British Airways in the near future.
Responding to queries at the airline’s inaugural flight service to Colombo, Ramachandran said, “We have licences to operate to at least seven more global destinations. We will be covering destinations such as Far East, Dubai, Singapore, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Dhaka and Maldives in the next two-three months. We will try to link these destinations with all the major metros and cities in India.”
He said that the company also expects to cover South Africa and Kuwait in the near future. “We will have covered at least 9 destinations by the end of this year. We have no plans to add new aircraft to cover these destinations; rather, we will try to utilise the existing fleet to the fullest.” He also said that there has been a sharp improvement in the company’s Bangalore-London and Mumbai-London services over a period of time.
“This is encouraging,” he noted, adding, “Anything more than a 70% load factor will help us break even soon.” On the question of airfares, he said they are dynamic but competitive. “We do not lose sight or sell at lower prices to have full capacity. Ours is a five-star, global airline and we offer premium services. Certainly, we do not operate at below profitable levels.” He also said that the company is not hiring foreign crew as the government has not allowed it.
“Despite a code sharing alliance with Jet Airways, both Kingfisher and Jet will operate on the routes that make business sense,” said Ramachandran. For instance, both airlines could operate on the Mumbai-Singapore route as it offers tremendous business opportunity.
Earlier, announcing the airline’s services to Colombo from Chennai and Bangalore, effective Monday, he said that flights have been timed conveniently from both places.
?Travel for the story was sponsored by Kingfisher