Category Archives: Airlines in India

I really didn’t mean to write constantly about the very, very slow death of India’s Kingfisher Airlines. I assumed they would disappear like a US-based airline where 1 day they’re here, and 1 day they’re not. But no. Not Kingfisher. It’s been months of not paying their employees and not paying their taxes and having their bank accounts seized and so on.

Now, they’ve canceled all of their international services. This is a big deal, not least of which because in India you need to be flying for 5 years before they’ll even grant you the right to fly internationally. And given the overcrowded domestic market, no one can run a profitable airline only flying within India.

March 25th is the last they’ll be flying to most cities outside India, except for London, which will be canceled April 9.

Little-by-little they’re shutting down and one day (apparently months from now) I’ll write about when the shutter. Until then, I would most definitely avoid them on any intra-India trips.

An update on struggling Indian carrier Kingfisher Airlines faced another blow yesterday when IATA suspended it from membership. This means that Kingfisher can no longer use IATA’s payment clearinghouse or payment & settling which, in practical terms, means most travel agents can’t sell tickets and no interlining or codesharing can occur.

Kingfisher hasn’t been paying its employees or partners for months, and the equivalent of the Indian IRS has frozen the airline’s accounts after it stopped paying taxes.

Kingfisher began to go bad just prior to the global slowdown in 2008, when it committed to purchase A380s and, in a move that looks not particularly bright in hindsight, leveraged itself up to purchase budget airline Air Deccan.

I would absolutely NOT recommend buying a ticket on Kingfisher at this point.

In the “this is not a good sign department”: Struggling Kingfisher Airlines has not paid employees since December, adding to the signs that the carrier may not make it.

You may remember that the Indian airline “postponed” entry into Oneworld a few weeks back to deal with some financial issues. Apparently not paying its employees was one of those issues.

The airline’s CEO blames the non-payment on unexpected emergency payments that needed to be made in December, but really the problem is the rather massive (7,000 crore Rupees, or as we would say, $1.4 billion) debt that they’re sitting on.

Kingfisher isn’t the only Indian airline in trouble: Jet Airways has not paid its employees for January yet. Combined, the two airlines, which may not survive much longer, employ 18,000 people.

The Indian airline industry has struggled with overcapacity, brutal fare competition, and, of course, protectionism, keeping foreign investment in airlines to a minimum. They also require startups to fly for 5 years before permitting them to fly internationally, forcing new carriers to compete in the brutal domestic market.

If you don’t care about airlines in India, feel free to skip ahead…

The Indian airline industry has seen a massive amount of consolidation over the past couple of years, and that strategy continued today with Jet Airways and Kingfisher agreeing to an alliance that will control 60% of the domestic market.  The past couple of years have seen tie ups between Air India and Indian, Jet Airways and Air Sahara, Kingfisher and Air Deccan, and now this Jet and Kingfisher thing.  GoAir, SpiceJet and IndiGo remain independents (for now), but I’m not sure how they could possibly survive.  India’s airlines lost a billion dollars last year and are on track to lose $2 billion this year (high fuel prices, shrinking demand, lower fares all contribute).  Add to that ridiculous overlap on key routes and it’s a disaster.  The airlines have now turned to the government for a bailout (hm, sound familiar?)

New Delhi sees some impressive rains this time of year, and even the animals have had trouble drying off after the downpours:  Following the heavy rains in Delhi, the international airport was overrun by jackals, foxes and lizards on Monday, causing the closure of the airport for an hour.  About 100 flights were affected by the animals, which had come to the runway to sun themselves following the storms.  Just another typical day for India’s aviation industry.

Say what you will about the hassles of flying in the US, but at least you don’t have to deal with this:  A Kingfisher Airlines ATR hit a jackal on the runway at Bangalore’s airport last week, causing a 3-hour shutdown as workers tried to get the carcass of the animal out of the plane’s nose wheel.  No one (except the jackal) was injured.