Private Indian airline Kingfisher plans an early September start of flights between Heathrow Airport and India. The airline's chairman and CEO, Indian tycoon Virjay Mallya, revealed in a BBC interview that the airline had obtained slots at Heathrow to the allow flights to commence.
The route will be either to Mumbai or Bangalore, and will be the airline's first international service. Kingfisher Airlines was established three years ago as India's first 'five-star airline' and is part of the UB group, the world's third largest drinks company. The airline merged with rival Deccan a year ago and now serves 64 cities in India with almost 500 daily departures.
Kingfisher has obtained an initial pair of slots from the Heathrow coordinator, but is negotiating to take over a second pair of slots from KLM. The Dutch airline said it planned to suspend its Rotterdam - Heathrow service in order to lease out the slots. It was seeking 'to maximise its slot portfolio' and was 'talking to various parties'. The London - Rotterdam route is already covered by Air France-KLM group airline VLM. |
