Air Asia & Kingfisher cutting flights.

[sportsman]

Maybe nothing more than sound business practice.Could also indicate some financial problems looming.
I wonder if this will have any impact on Caterham team.

Australians who have booked flights to Europe with budget carrier AirAsia X after March will be affected by the airline's decision to suspend the flights in a cost-cutting move.
The long-haul unit of budget carrier AirAsia said yesterday it would suspend services to Paris and London and cut India flights in a bid to rein in costs.
The Malaysia-based airline cited global economic uncertainty, soaring taxes and higher jet fuel prices for the move, adding it would redeploy its fleet to profitable Asian and Australian routes.
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AirAsia X, a unit of AirAsia, will cease services to Mumbai and Delhi from January 31 and March 22, respectively while routes to London and Paris will end on March 30 and March 31 respectively.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/airasia-suspends-flights-to-london-paris-in-costcutting-effort-20120113-1pych.html#ixzz1qVv7O6fP​

 

[RasputinLives]

Hmm be interesting to watch, especially after Fernandez has told the team to become financially independent. If you look at their GP2 team its nothing more than a piggy bank of funds for the main team with 2 pay drivers - add to that the big bucks for Petrov being there as well and its not hard to argue Fernandez has obviously tightened his purse strings.

Having said though with the state of the economy as it is all airlines are floundering at the min so it could be just a sign of good business management like you said. Be interesting to see.

 

[canis]

Not much to tell really, the routes are currently loosing money due to cost of fuel and taxes for the flights through the stop overs. By not running the flights his profit levels go up, by putting the planes on routes that do make a profit then more profit again. Simple business decision and good it is taken now rather than when it is too late like a lot of other airlines that have run into major financial problems in the past few years...

 

[sportsman]

Seems rather odd shortly after ordering 200 new planes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13884433
Airbus piled up the orders at the Paris air show as it announced the largest single order of commercial aircraft in history.
Malaysia's low-cost carrier AirAsia is buying 200 of the A320neo jets, in a deal worth about $18bn (£11bn).

 

[canis]

Not odd at all, all that is happening is that they are directing their existing fleet to profitable routes to maximise income. The new planes will be to cover the proposed expansion of routes into new territories. Simple rule of business, if something makes you profit, take advantage of it, if something looses you money stop doing it...

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

Reckon over the years Fernandez has earned a bit of money so i'm sure with that he'll continue to fund the team. Besides it's only a few flights he's cutting for routes that weren't taking much people aboard. Nothing to worry about really just another tabloid scare munger.

 

[FB]

Sort of related, the Indian air transport regulators were threatening to pull Kingfishers licence as they were cancelling too many flights. Doesn't bode well for Vijay.

 

[jez101]

Seems rather odd shortly after ordering 200 new planes.

Not odd at all, all that is happening is that they are directing their existing fleet to profitable routes to maximise income. The new planes will be to cover the proposed expansion of routes into new territories. Simple rule of business, if something makes you profit, take advantage of it, if something looses you money stop doing it...

It takes a long time for that many planes to get made, so I think that is for the long term while the route changes are much shorter term reasons.

 

[FB]

An update on Kingfisher.

http://news.yahoo.com/indias-ailing-kingfisher-airlines-cuts-more-routes-174352240.html

They are now flying 20 aircraft rather than 64 and have cancelled all long haul flights. There's an interesting piece in the Times of India stating that the cheques they gave to the Airports Authority of India have bounced as AAI didn't present them for 6 months.