Kingfisher Airlines loses foreign rights, domestic airport slots - Times of India

The author has posted comments on this articleTNN | Feb 26, 2013, 04.31AM IST NEW DELHI: In a blow to grounded Kingfisher Airlines's desire to fly again, the government on Monday withdrew its international flying rights along with slots at Indian airports with immediate effect. Aviation minister Ajit Singh has ordered that KFA's international rights - amounting to 25,000 seats every week to eight countries - be given to other airlines. Singh has also told the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to make the withdrawn domestic airport slots of KFA available for other domestic airlines. Liquor baron Vijay Mallya had launched Kingfisher in 2005 and acquired Captain G R Gopinath's Air Deccan in 2007 to start overseas flights on latter's licence as according to rules, an Indian carrier can fly abroad only after completing five years and after attaining minimum fleet size of 20 aircraft. Between 2008 and 2011, KFA got rights to operate over 100 weekly flights to UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Dubai. "These international traffic rights have been withdrawn from KFA on account of non-utilization. The minister has decided to make these international traffic rights available to other carriers for use. This would give additional availability of approximately 25,000 seats per week for use by other Indian carriers to these eight countries, some of which are much in demand by these carriers," an aviation ministry statement said. A senior official said, "Their airline operating permit has lapsed and they did not operate any flight in the ongoing winter schedule. Now, they will have no summer slots either. The wait to restart operations cannot be an endless one and now it's all but end of the road for the airline." via Business - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFVR9StsWUVJTBFEedacDVzfo7jXQ&url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Kingfisher-Airlines-loses-foreign-rights-domestic-airport-slots/articleshow/18684693.cms

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