Kingfisher Airlines has finally moved to slash operations on international sectors that have been making heavy losses for some time in the process returning one leased Airbus A330-320. As we have been mentioning on this service for two years, Kingfisher needs to quickly get back to the core domestic markets of what was Air Deccan and put its previous business plans on the fire where they belong. Only by concentrating on the domestic market can Kingfisher survive in any shape or form. Even so the price war in India is killing Jet Airways and Air India and damaging Spice. Note though the news from last week that Air India is looking to realign domestic services under a new ultra-low cost, this news could indicate that the Indian domestic market is set to continue in a state of all out price war for some time to come. We could also argue, given that oil is continuing to rise, that the Indian market in many ways will resemble the bloodshed to come in the South East Asian market as the glut of low-cost airlines popping up everywhere begin to compete for the same business. All the while populations will be ageing fast.
Look to the March/April issue of Airline Economics for a feature on the impact of demographic changes on the global aviation sector with an outlook on the airlines that will be hardest hit across the globe – Along with one airline that is readying itself for the change right now.
Kingfisher managed to operate 101 flights on Tuesday and Wednesday from 145 on Monday. In many ways this might not be bad news and it might be that funds from lenders may be on the way in the next week or so. Watch this space.
Meanwhile, US Airways is currently buying up Internet domain names in case they are able to secure a merger or purchase agreement with American Airlines. A spokesman for US Airways Group confirmed Tuesday that the company registered several domain addresses that include the names of both airlines, including usairways-american.com and american-usairways.com.