Kingfisher cuts flights to 30 cities

Loss-making Kingfisher Airlines announced that it has suspended services from six state capitals, including Hyderabad and Kolkata, and asked half of its around 7,000 staff to “stay at home” till the situation improved for the carrier.

In the summer schedule beginning March 25, the airline has started flying to less than 30 cities as against the 60 it normally operated from and has withdrawn flights from Kolkata, Hyderabad, Patna, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram and Bhubaneswar, it said on Tuesday.

Kingfisher Airlines also cancelled its morning flight from Bangalore to Hubli for an indefinite period. However, it continues to operate the evening service. The airline has begun operating about 120 flights with 20 dedicated aircraft as against 140 flights it used to operate with 28 aircraft now. This is a far cry from the 400 flights from 64 aircraft that it was supposed to fly during the winter schedule which was disrupted as the Vijay Mallya-owned company was in a financial bind.

Kingfisher Airlines, burdened by a debt of over Rs 7,000 crore,  did not refer to the three important cities from the point of its earnings – Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. “In the current schedule, we have taken care to ensure that we maintain schedule integrity with 100 per cent reliability. The Directorate-General of Civil Aviation is also monitoring our safety standards constantly,” the airline said in a press release.