Kingfisher squeezes ticket sales

Indebted Indian carrier Kingfisher Airlines has stopped issuing tickets to UAE travel agents ahead of plans to cease its flights to Dubai from Sunday. “We have had access to Kingfisher Airlines removed from our system around two weeks ago,” Basel Abu Alrub, managing partner of Dubai-based travel agency Utravel confirmed to Arabian Business on Thursday. “This really doesn’t come as a surprise to us as we have been hearing various news and reports about the airline’s condition and therefore we have issued an internal circulation more than a month ago advising our ticketing agents to stop issuing Kingfisher Airline tickets,” he added. The move comes as it was reported the airline, which is battling US$1.3bn in debt, plans to stop flying to Dubai from Sunday and cease all its international operations from April 10. Routes to Hong Kong and Singapore have already been canceled and flights to Dubai, Colombo, Kathmandu, Bangkok will stop from March 25, according to a report by The Economic Times newspaper. While the airline has not confirmed the report and calls to its Dubai office were unanswered, its website was not processing flights to Dubai after March 25 when attempts were made on Thursday. Adding fuel to its problems, Indian Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh told reporters the government may cancel the carrier’s licence if it does not maintain safety norms. There had been speculation Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways was in talks regarding a potential rescue package but these appear to have been fruitless. The airline’s chairman Vijay Mallya, the Indian billionaire who controls 58 percent of Kingfisher, said in February he had secured provisional approval from the Indian government for a change in the law that would ease restrictions on foreign ownership of Indian airlines. While Mallya did not name the airlines he was talking to, The Times newspaper claimed Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways has discussed the possibility of a tie-up to provide equity in exchange for a minority stake in Kingfisher. “We never comment on speculation of this nature,” an Etihad spokesperson told Arabian Business in a statement. “We talk regularly and frequently to many airlines and a range of other businesses from all over the world about issues and opportunities.”