Kingfisher Airlines will not cancel the order of five Airbus A-380s, the largest aircraft in the world, though the delivery has been delayed by 10 months from January to December 2010. The airline, however, has already asked for compensation from the manufacturer.
Vijay Mallya, CMD, Kingfisher Airlines said that he will definitely fly the aircraft for its huge passenger capacity and economical operations in India and take the advantage of both Delhi and Mumbai airports, which are expanding their infrastructure to become A-380 compliant.
Mallaya said, "The delays does not affect out operational plans. We will fly A-380 on the international routes, but these services will be started much earlier, once we get deliveries of our Airbus A350-800 wide bodied aircraft by next year.
Our negotiations with Airbus Industries have already started to work out a compensation package deal on this unscheduled delay."
He, however, refused to outline the compensation demanded. Kingfisher was the first Indian airline to place orders for five A-380 in June 2005 with Airbus.
The airlines is also expanding its business class service, Kingfisher First, which has been receiving good response from the market. "We have one of the highest yields in the business class. From 40 per cent the occupancy has gone over to 80 per cent, despite being the most expensive air-travel service in the domestic airline sector.
Our focus will remain on premium services in future and we are working on new air-flier packages," Mallya said.
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