Kingfisher Airlines operations continued to be disrupted for the third
consecutive day with around 14 flights cancelled Monday, a day after the
Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) took a serious note of the
developments, an airport official said.
Kingfisher Airlines
(KFA) officials, despite repeated attempts, declined to confirm or deny
the developments. Instead, they repeatedly said that "we shall issue a
statement when required" and refused to comment on the potential action
by the DGCA.
The cancellations have affected incoming or outbound flights in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore.
The
abrupt flight cancellations had created major problems for passengers
waiting to travel after having booked their tickets months in advance,
an official at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport said.
However,
Sunday, the beleaguered carrier reeling under financial losses had
claimed that despite flight disruptions since the past couple of days,
it has not shut down any stations from its schedules, an official said.
The developments have also worried passengers intending to travel on KFA flights in the next few days or weeks.
"Last
minute cancellations jeopardize our travel and onward plans, while
other carriers charge heavily for the same sector if we try to cancel
and make alternate bookings," said A.A. Kinariwalla, a manager with a
multinational in Mumbai, who is a frequent flier on domestic and
international sectors.
A KFA spokesperson blamed the flight
disruptions on certain unexpected incidents like 'bird hits' which
rendered its aircraft out of service.
The flight disruptions are
expected to continue for another three to four days with only 208
flights in operations, but the carrier has not shut down nor does it
plan to close down any stations, the official said.
"The
speculation that we are reducing our operating schedule from 240 flights
a day are ill-founded, as we will operate the full schedule on our
booking system within the next four days," the spokesperson added.
While
admitting that its bank accounts have been attached by the Income Tax
Department, KFA said in the past also similar issues have happened and
they have been resolved.
"We have had a good meeting with our
consortium of Banks who have accepted, in principle, the viability study
prepared by SBI Capital markets and independent consultants. Our
request for additional working capital has been acknowledged by the
consortium and is subject to individual bank approvals," the
spokesperson said.
The developments come after high fuel costs
and falling revenue resulted in KFA losses in the third quarter of the
current fiscal mounting to Rs.444 crore from a net loss of Rs.254 crore
suffered in the like quarter of 2010-11.
