The airlines, which cancelled about 35 flights today, informed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation about the step after the aviation regulator brought it to the notice of the cash-strapped carrier that many passengers were facing problems as they were coming to know about the cancellation of their flights only after booking seats.
Kingfisher has been cancelling an average of 30-35 flights, including some international flights, every day since November four saying it has to reconfigure its all-economy planes to add business class seats in them.
An airline normally carries out planned cancellations when it sends an aircraft for routine checks, maintenance or reconfiguration and no alternative aircraft is available and those flights which are planned to be operated by that aircraft have to be cancelled.
The airline has now informed DGCA that they have taken off from their booking system those flights which fall into the category of planned cancellation, official sources said.
Kingfisher CEO Sanjay Aggarwal has said the airline had grounded 10-12 aircraft for reconfiguration. "Overall, we have grounded 10-12 aircraft, or 55 flights, out of the 66 planes. But, we also added some flights by additional frequencies and are starting Mumbai-Udaipur from next month."
"Whatever the number of flights are published on the website, we will be flying from today. Changes will happen only after March, when the entire plane revamp will be over," Aggarwal had said yesterday.
Maintaining that no additional flights will be cancelled due to the ongoing aircraft reconfiguration, he said changes in the flight schedule would only take place by March, once the reconfiguration process was complete.
The DGCA had last week sent a notice to Kingfisher under Rule 140(A) of Aircraft Rules, asking it to show cause why the regulator's prior approval was not taken before curtailing flight schedules.
Under the rule, an airline has to obtain DGCA's concurrence before starting a new route or discontinuing a flight at least a week before undertaking such a step. DGCA had also asked the Vijay Mallya-owned carrier on what steps it had taken to take care of the passengers booked in the flights cancelled in terms of returning their airfares, accommodating them in their alternate flights or providing them alternate modes of transportation.
The airline had maintained that "for a limited period, these flights are either being cancelled or clubbed with other Kingfisher flights in a well-controlled and pre-determined manner".
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