Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways, which have entered into an operational alliance recently, may reduce flights as they tighten belts to overcome financial crunch.
NEW DELHI: Private air carriers Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways, which have entered into an operational alliance recently, may reduce flights as they tighten belts to overcome financial crunch.
"We are not going to unnecessarily deploy capacity which we cannot fill...if in non-peak hours Jet flight is not full and Kingfisher flight is not full, it makes sense for us to co-operate and fly one aircraft instead of two. (With this) the economics of airlines will improve substantially," Kingfisher Chairman and CEO Vijay Mallya said here.
He also said the two private carriers would co-operate on international routes, even as Kingfisher's plans to start non-stop flights to San-Francisco has been put on hold.
"The world is big enough. We have enough routes to operate without clashing with anyone unnecessarily," he said.
Jet and Kingfisher had last week announced an alliance to co-operate in seven areas, including joint fuel management, common ground handling and cross-selling of flight inventories.
The two biggest private carriers have been facing financial burden, which even prompted them to retrench employees.
Emerging from a meeting of Federation of Indian Airlines with Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, Mallya said he has dropped plans to import aviation turbine fuel after government promised support to airlines.
"Its not required, when the oil companies have agreed to help us, support us, why should he change the whole system," he said.
Blaming imposition of sales tax on ATF for the poor financial health of the carriers, Mallya said, "We need reduction in tax...if the sales tax is brought down to four per cent across the board, all airlines would go to black ink from red ink".
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