Kingfisher Dubai-India flights on schedule

Kingfisher Airlines has not announced cancellation of any flights to any of its three destinations in India from Dubai for Tuesday, while passengers flying to New Delhi on Monday were being accommodated on their Dubai-Mumbai flight, Emirates 24/7 can reveal.

“They are accommodating Delhi-bound passengers on our Dubai-Mumbai flight. No flights have been cancelled for tomorrow… everything is normal,” Kingfisher’s ground staff in Dubai said.

Kingfisher operates on three routes to India from Dubai -- New Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai.

AFP adds: Kingfisher  cancelled dozens of flights Monday, including at least one international route, after staff went on unofficial strike over unpaid wages.

Several other airports including New Delhi were also hit on Monday and at least one international flight, a 7:00 pm service from Delhi to Dubai, was among the flights scrapped.

Kingfisher said that its schedule was also affected after the company was suspended last week by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) from a global payments system.

The airline issued a statement blaming "employee agitation on delayed salaries" and the IATA suspension for the cancellations, which it said would hit about 20 percent of its already reduced service.

It did not say how many flights were affected during the day, but a Mumbai airport spokesman said 11 flights from Mumbai had been cancelled.

Kingfisher, which has never turned a profit and has sunk deeper into debt since its launch in 2005, has often run a reduced flight schedule in recent weeks amid growing fears for its survival.

The carrier, controlled by Indian liquor baron Vijay Mallya, owes suppliers, lenders and staff millions of dollars.

Mallya told The Week magazine published on Monday that the airline needed $200-250 million immediately to secure its future, and he pushed for foreign ownership restrictions to be lifted in the aviation sector.

"Additional equity can and must be part of the plan," Mallya said. "That is why I have been requesting the government to reconsider its ban on foreign airlines investing."

"I have never asked the government for a rupee... (but) the airports are government-owned. The fuel supplier is government-owned. The banks are government-owned. It's in their hands," he said.

Mallya pointed to high fuel prices, taxes and the plunging rupee as being responsible for the current crisis -- not bad management.

Kingfisher's bank accounts have been frozen by Indian authorities due to non-payment of taxes, and at least 60 pilots have already left the airline to work with rivals according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

The airline's net loss widened sharply to 4.44 billion rupees ($88 million) in the three months to December from a loss of 2.54 billion rupees a year earlier, while its debt totals at least $1.3 billion.

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