Kingfisher Airlines has been reported by the media to have chosen AMS-Amsterdam as its major international hub outside of India. They will seek to fly via AMS to JFK and SFO in the short term future using their 2 class configured 220 seater Airbus A 330-200s. At AMS, KF will enter into a broad based code sharing and frequent flier relationship with KLM to help generate feeder traffic from KLM's vast USA/UK and Western Europe network.
KF has also indicated its intentions to sell 2-3 of its A 340-500s as the economic feasibility study of the aircraft revealed that in the current climate of high fuel prices, it would be suicidal to use this aircraft on nonstop India-JFK and India-SFO flights.
Comments:
According to Wikipedia, there are 217,000 migrant Indians residing in Holland alone thus making the country have the largest mainland Indian EU population even more than Germany, Italy and France combined.So besides 6th freedom transit traffic, it can also get O&D traffic from AMS to India. The purpose of this move seems to be as follows:KF will indeed code share with both NW and KLM on trans-atlantic services in order to avoid itself flying certain routes where its not warranted flying an A 332 due to high fuel and other operational costs. This in effect allows KF to still offer one stop India-USA flights via the AMS hub to key markets where its aircraft may not fly i.e. LAX/IAH/DFW/DTW/IAD/EWR/SEA.
KF has also indicated its intentions to sell 2-3 of its A 340-500s as the economic feasibility study of the aircraft revealed that in the current climate of high fuel prices, it would be suicidal to use this aircraft on nonstop India-JFK and India-SFO flights.
Comments:
According to Wikipedia, there are 217,000 migrant Indians residing in Holland alone thus making the country have the largest mainland Indian EU population even more than Germany, Italy and France combined.So besides 6th freedom transit traffic, it can also get O&D traffic from AMS to India. The purpose of this move seems to be as follows:KF will indeed code share with both NW and KLM on trans-atlantic services in order to avoid itself flying certain routes where its not warranted flying an A 332 due to high fuel and other operational costs. This in effect allows KF to still offer one stop India-USA flights via the AMS hub to key markets where its aircraft may not fly i.e. LAX/IAH/DFW/DTW/IAD/EWR/SEA.
Honestly speaking, IT should not venture into NYC as AI-9W already fly there as do CO-DL. One glance at how poorly AI's and 9W's JFK flights should be sufficient for KF to stay clear of that airport! It should only use its A 332s from AMS to markets in USA which would welcome a direct flight via AMS to BOM and BLR initially and see little competition. Taking that into consideration, 2 A 332s should be based in AMS by Kingfisher for daily AMS-ORD + daily AMS-SFO flights initially. To DEL & HYD, IT should codeshare with KLM from AMS.
1 comment:
According to a video on UTVi website (http://utvi.myrecourl.com) it seems that KF has postponed its US plans due to the high fuel costs. Does this indicate that its Europe plans will also change?
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