Kingfisher gets nod for 5 global routes

The government has allowed Kingfisher Airlines to operate daily services on various international sectors, including Mumbai-London, Chennai-Colombo and Mumbai-Singapore. The Vijay Mallya-owned Kingfisher currently flies between Bangalore-London, the only foreign route after it became eligible to fly internationally in August this year. “The government has granted permission to Kingfisher to operate daily services to Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Colombo and Dhaka with immediate effect. In our earlier interaction, the airline had showed its preparedness to operate to all these sectors,” a government official, who did not wish to be named, said. The airline confirmed the development. “The time frame for launch of these services will be announced progressively,” a spokesperson of Kingfisher Airlines said. The airline plans to operate services to Hong Kong and Singapore in the next few months. It may, however, wait to operate in the Mumbai-London sector as the route already has excess capacity.



“Despite the downturn in the world economy, Singapore and Hong Kong offer robust premium air traffic growth. There is very good onward connectivity from the two points for north Asia and north America. Both the two destinations are gateway to north Asia and hold huge premium traffic to North America,” Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation India head Kapil Kaul said. London is overserved at present, he added. According to an industry estimate, designated airlines carried about 7.89 lakh passengers during January-October, 2008 on India-Singapore sector. Last year, these carriers flew 7.48 lakh passengers. India-Hong Kong sector also saw the traffic growing with designated carriers carrying 3.58 lakh passengers during January-October period.