The Hindu Business Line : Vijay Mallya urges Govt to ensure level-playing field

KINGFISHER Airlines, which sees no impact of the Jet Airway's acquisition of Air Sahara on it, however, has urged the Government of India to ensure equal and level-playing field for every operator in the country.

In an informal chat with newspersons at Mangalore airport on Friday, Mr Vijay Mallya, Chairman and Managing Director of Kingfisher Airlines, said that the Jet Airway's decision to buy Air Sahara would not impact Kingfisher Airlines in any way.

He said, "I had equal opportunity to buy that. It is simply not worth it. If somebody claims that they are buying because of infrastructure facilities such as parking lots and departure and landing slots, those infrastructure facilities belong to the Government of India."

`Unfair monopoly'

Citing the examples of air traffic between Delhi and Mumbai, he said the Government would have to look into `unfair monopoly' in parking slot allocations.

Stating that nearly 50 per cent of the air traffic in the country is between Mumbai and Delhi, Mr Mallya said the metro cities account over 85 per cent of the current traffic of the country.

"You can't ignore the hard facts. Five cities and the connectivity among them accounts for over 85 per cent of air traffic in this country, which is not seen in any other country. Despite that there are infrastructure bottlenecks at metro cities, " he said.

Of the 41 flights between Delhi and Mumbai, Jet Airways has 18, Indian Airlines 11, Kingfisher five and others seven.

"We want to increase our number from five to 10 flights. For that, there should be parking slots available. If that is not available, Kingfisher or other operators would not be able to increase their frequency, from these particular sectors. Available parking slots have been allotted to Jet, Sahara and Indian Airlines. That creates an unfair monopoly. That is something that the Government will have to look at," Mr Mallya said.

The Government either should improve infrastructure to other airline operators to expand, or Jet has to give up parking slots. Either side needs fair opportunity. That means equal opportunity to all, Mr Mallya said.

"I just want to make sure that the Government should ensure equal and level-playing field for every operator," he added.