BackAirbus to reduce orders placed by Kingfisher Airlines from its book
Airbus executives said Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines had ordered five Airbus A380 and 10 A350 planes
PremiumPhoto: HT
Hyderabad: Airplane manufacturer Airbus SAS on Thursday said it will continue to reduce aircraft orders placed by Vijay Mallya-promoted Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, which has not flown since 2012.
Airbus executives said Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines had ordered five Airbus A380, the largest civilian airplane ever built, and 10 A350 planes.
Joost Van dee Heijden, vice-president, marketing Asia and customer affairs at Airbus SAS, said the company is continuing to reduce its orders from the order book list.
He said the current 70% of the market share of Airbus is excluding Kingfisher Airlines’ orders.
He did not disclose details about other orders, including Airbus A330s and Airbus A320s.
However, the website of Airbus still features the name of Kingfisher Airlines along with its then low-fare subsidiary Kingfisher Red.
Kingfisher Airlines was the first Indian airline to place orders for A380 and Mallya brought the first A380 to India as a demonstrated flight before its was grounded.
Kingfisher Airlines merged Deccan Aviation Ltd, which ran Air Deccan, with itself in April 2008. Initially, Mallya rebranded Air Deccan, which was a household name then, to Simplifly Deccan and later to Kingfisher Red.
In September 2008, Mallya launched Kingfisher’s first international flight—from Bengaluru to London.
Then the global financial crisis struck. Kingfisher survived the first few years of the crisis, but eventually the financial pressure started showing. It didn’t help that the company was managing two brands, one high-end, one low-cost.
The airline had to cut its fleet to 28 planes from 66 owing to a resulting cash crunch.
Finally, the regulator suspended its flying licence in October 2012.
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