Birth of Kingfisher

Kingfisher Airlines Limited was setup in 2003 at a Registrar’s office with its registered office in the UB City Bangalore. The cheering and the beautiful ladies in red were only to come in 2005. Kingfisher Airlines started its operations on 9^th May 2005 with a modest fleet of 4 Airbus A320-200s; the inaugural flight being from Mumbai to Delhi. Kingfisher Airlines closed the year with an income of INR 13.5 Billion but still suffered a loss of INR 3.4 Billion.

“The Kingfisher Airlines family will consistently deliver a safe, value-based and enjoyable travel experience to all our guests.”

India's one of the most highly profiled airlines- Kingfisher, has turned into shambles whereas in the market scenario, other competitors of the Kingfisher are flying high. During the year 2012, Global aviation industry was going through a challenging phase due to ground breaking fuel price hike for the last 4 years, Hectic financial markets and economic slowdown. Vijay Mallya’s dream venture, Kingfisher Airlines –widely known as The King of Good Times – witnessed its worst phase. Kingfisher Airlines was an attempt of Vijay Mallya to provide an experience of leisure and luxury to the common man of India. Kingfisher Airlines started humbly and took off very soon to become a giant in the Indian Airline Industry. The Airline went through many stages of both organic and inorganic growth. Growing its assets and also piling its liabilities.

The Airline never reported profits in its balance sheets after its listing in the Indian stock markets. This trend of loss making continued and saw the Airline touchdown. Mounting Debits, continues losses, unfriendly competition and lack of government aid together made sure that the Airline stood grounded forever.

The Early Days

Brand Kingfisher was starting to come into piece. Models like Yana Gupta posed in Red which would remain to be an icon for years to come. In December 2006, Kingfisher announced that it would provide in flight entertainment. This was curtsey of a collaboration with the Z network’s Dish TV DTH service. By this time Kingfisher Airlines had a fleet size of 34. This was also the time when Vijay Mallya and his managers came up with the plan of acquiring Captain Gopinath’s low cost carrier called Deccan Airlines.

Since June 2007, things started looking up for Kingfisher Airlines. Kingfisher now possessed 41 Aircrafts and a schedule of 255 flights. By the end of 2007 and all the deliberations and hesitations, Kingfisher Airlines finally acquired Deccan Aviation on 19^th Dec 2007. The income at the end of the year was recorded at INR 15.4 Billion and accounted to a surprisingly small loss of INR 1.8 Billion.

With the onset of 2008, Kingfisher Airlines became the largest passenger airliner in India. With a fleet size of 77 aircrafts operating 412 domestic flights everyday Kingfisher had become a giant in the Indian Airline Industry. Kingfisher had now started offering 3 classes of travel: Kingfisher First – the premium business class, Kingfisher Class – Premium economy, and Kingfisher Red – the low cost service. Kingfisher Red was just a new name for Air Deccan.

2008 came to see another large step taken by Kingfisher Airlines. They started operating on International routes. This was facilitated by the courtesy of the merger with Deccan Airlines which was in the Airlines industry for over 5 years.

By the end the FY2009, Kingfisher had made its name as the Five Star Airline of India and had been the only Airline to be rated as such. The revenue rose that year because of the combined revenue of Kingfisher and Air Deccan. It reported an income of INR 55 Billion, but the losses also had grown to INR 16 Billion. Many believe Acquiring Air Deccan was the first big mistake or in other words the beginning of the end for Kingfisher.