Kingfisher Chief: Airline Safe to Fly

Cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines chief, Vijay Mallaya, is reported to have said that the airline is "1000 percent safe to fly". He emphasized that passenger safety was of "paramount importance" and that the airline currently has a sufficient number of engineers and pilots to ensure the safe running of all its scheduled flights. The comments come in the wake of the current precarious financial situation of the company.

Kingfisher has defaulted on payments to airport operators, oil companies, and recently on employee salaries. The financial trouble has left the airline with more than Rs 6000 crore of debt.

Kingfisher has seen its revenues jump over 10%, but it is not enough to get it out of its financial difficulties. It continues to fly at a loss, and is looking for additional funding to keep on operating. The airline has cancelled several routes in order to cut costs.

"We reassure our valued guests that our scheduled flights will continue to operate with utmost safety in full compliance with regulatory requirements and stipulations in this regard," Aggarwal said.

As a result of the cancellation of certain flights, Kingfisher has dropped to fifth position in terms of the number of domestic passengers carried at 14%.

As of November, the jet Group (Jet Airways and Jet Lite) had a 21% share of the passengers carried. Indigo was second with 19.8%, Air India 3rd with 17.4%. GoAir carried 6.23% of domestic passengers.

Friday, 13th January 2012 at 07:59am