Air Transport

India’s Kingfisher Airlines is negotiating a deal under which a US airline would operate international flights on its behalf until it secures rights to operate them itself.

Chief operating officer Nigel Harwood says talks have begun with an “operating airline” in the USA that he will not identify.

He says the deal under discussion is for that carrier to operate Kingfisher’s widebodies under a “damp-lease arrangement”, which means the US airline would supply cockpit crew and Kingfisher the cabin crew.

Harwood says the aircraft would be put on the US aircraft registry and would operate to India using US designations, although they would fly in Kingfisher colours.

“We have come up with several scenarios, but the one we favour is we would ‘damp-lease’ the aircraft to them for a two- or three-year period until 2010 comes around,” says Harwood.

“They would provide the flying crew. The cabin crew, the service, everything else would be done by Kingfisher and we would manage it all. Anything at the guest ‘touch point’ is ours. The aircraft would fly under Kingfisher colours, but it would just have an N-registration [and be on the US aircraft registry].”

Kingfisher launched domestic services using Airbus A320 narrowbodies a year ago, but under Indian government regulations is not allowed to fly outside India for at least five years from its launch, or until May 2010.

Last year, however, it ordered Airbus A330s for delivery from next year and recently ordered five Airbus A340-500s for delivery from 2008. It also has A380s on order for delivery from 2010 and A350s for delivery from 2012.