Kingfisher's Vijay Mallya says sorry

Vijay Mallya, billionaire chairman of Kingfisher Airlines, has attempted to clear the air of speculation surrounding his troubled airline.

"Kingfisher does not see any risk to its future or long-term viability," said Mallya, according to a CNN report.

For a week Kingfisher has been cancelling around 50 flights a day without approval, leaving more than a few stranded passengers.

Nor did the airline take these flights off the booking system, so the passenger crisis worsened.

At first the airline issued a statement saying the cancelled flights were part of reconfigurations of aircraft following the closing-down of its budget carrier service, Kingfisher Red.

Yesterday Mallya admitted that, "We cancelled some of our flights because we could not afford to fly on unprofitable routes. It was a commercially prudent decision. We also took the decision to phase out Kingfisher Red because we were seeing better yields on the full service Kingfisher Class."

But the chairman admitted that the flight cancellations could have been handled better.

According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, when an airline cancels a flight due to reasons within its control, it needs to compensate the passenger, provide an alternative flight or alternative mode of transport.

The compensation could range from Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000. Or the airline can put its passengers on another airline by paying for their tickets. If the other airline has vacant seats, it cannot refuse to take the passenger.

Now Kingfisher has taken flights for which it has no backup off the booking systems. And communication about the remaining hundreds of Kingfisher flights is expected to improve from November 20.

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