On the day after its inaugural flight from its hub in Bangalore to London Heathrow, Chairman and CEO, Vijay Mallya announced new daily flights from London Heathrow to Mumbai in the winter schedule commencing October 26. Using its new A330-200 aircraft, Vijay Mallya declared that he would start flights from Mumbai to Singapore from 18 September, and Mumbai to Hong Kong from 21 October and definitely Bangkok before the end of the year.
In addition, a new non-stop direct flight will launch at the beginning of November from Bangalore to San Francisco. There had been speculation about this route because of the sale of two A340-500 aircraft by Kingfisher, but Vijay Mallya said these had been sold to ”an African airline” (in fact, believed to be Qatar Airways), but that he had retained three specifically for the San Francisco service.
Vijay Mallya also said that the newly-opened airport at Bangalore was now functioning well as a hub, and allowed for connections onward to Colombo, the Maldives and Bangkok. Nevertheless, several of these new international flights are originating in Mumbai rather than Bangalore, although sources at the airline say the international flights will quickly be followed by flights from Bangalore.
Although at the time of writing Kingfisher”s website is not offering pricing in sterling for these new routes, sources said this would change in coming days, as also would Kingfisher”s presence on online agents websites such as Travelocity and Airline Network.
For more information, visit www.flykingfisher.com.
Tom Otley
ABTN has reported extensively on Kingfisher. For related stories click here.