Kingfisher Airlines vie for Heathrow slots

London: Etihad, the Abu Dhabi-based airline, and Kingfisher Airlines of India are negotiating deals to gain access to more take-off and landing slots at London Heathrow.
Long-haul carriers are taking over more of the prized slots at Heathrow from short-haul services as widebody jets replace smaller aircraft and some incumbent carriers seek to cash in on the slot trade. The trend is allowing passenger numbers at Europe’s most congested airport to grow without an increase in flights.
Kingfisher is expected to make Heathrow its first long-haul destination when it starts international flights from India this year.
It has obtained an initial pair of slots from the Heathrow co-ordinator, but is negotiating to take over a second pair of slots from KLM. The Dutch subsidiary of Air France-KLM 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”.
In the past year it has given up its Heathrow-Eindhoven service and cut its daily flights to Amsterdam to make slots available to its Northwest Airlines, its US partner, for new daily services between Heathrow and Detroit, Minneapolis and Seattle.
23/06/08 Kevin Done/Financial Times, UK

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Categories: Airports Jun 2008, Foreign Jun 2008, Kingfisher Jun 2008