Kingfisher’s pain could be Jet Airways’ gain. The Naresh Goyal-led carrier plans to increase the number of its full-service flights to attract passengers affected by Kingfisher cancellations.
Currently, about 60 per cent of Jet’s domestic flights operate under the Konnect brand, a no-frills service. The airline now plans to increase the share of full-service fights to 50 per cent, says Jet Airways chief executive officer Nikos Kardassis.
The strategy of Jet, which posted a second-quarter loss of Rs 713 crore on the back of high crude oil prices, lean season impact and foreign exchange conversion loss, is simple. An increase in the number of full-service flights will help improve its yields and also make competition tougher for Kingfisher.
Jet Airways and its low-cost subsidiary JetLite operate 620 daily flights across domestic and international networks in the current schedule. Since last Monday, Kingfisher has been cancelling 30-50 flights daily as it tries to pare losses. Kingfisher has said it is cutting non-profitable routes and carrying out reconfiguration of planes to relaunch as a full-service carrier. The reconfiguration will require up to three aircraft to be out of service over the next three months. That means Kingfisher will be operating a truncated schedule.
14/11/11 Aneesh Phadnis/Business Standard
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
0 comments:
Post a Comment