Kingfisher to start US-India flights by 2008

Mumbai, Apr 28 (UNI) Kingfisher Airlines will start flying from the United States to India by 2008, its chairman and managing director Vijay Mallya said today.

"The US is India's largest trading partner. I see this as a unique opportunity to fly Indian passengers who currently fly to the US using foreign carriers like Emirates and Singapore Airlines," Mr Malya stressed.

He said Kingfisher will start getting delivery of five Airbus A380 aircraft by last quarter of 2007. Besides, 15 wide body planes for which orders have been placed will start coming by 2008.

"All these planes are capable of flying to the US non-stop," said Mr Mallya while winding up the two-day tourism and aviation investors' meet organised by the Sydney-based Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA).

Currently, Kingfisher operates 11 Airbus aircrafts and connects 15 cities in India with 70 flights. Government rules say a domestic airline needs to fly within country for five years before operating on international routes.

To beat that, Kingfisher has floated a US subsidiary. Instead of flying from India to the US, it now plans to fly the other way round.

UNI SU ARB PC1921