Air Transport

Indian carrier Kingfisher Airlines has reached agreements with leasing companies for the early return of 10 Airbus A320s, mostly ex-Deccan aircraft.

Kingfisher executive VP Hitesh Patel says the airline has reached an agreement with GE Commercial Aviation Services for the early return of four A320s.

He also says it has reached agreements to return two A320s to AWAS, two to Aircastle and two to Amentum Capital.

The AWAS aircraft were returned some weeks ago and at least one is now with SriLankan Airlines.

Patel says the A320s Kingfisher returned early were mostly older Deccan aircraft in single-class configuration.

But he adds the Amentum A320s were new aircraft that Kingfisher never operated and had parked at Airbus' factory in Toulouse.

There are several other A320s parked at Toulouse and painted in Kingfisher's livery but Patel says next year the airline only plans to take delivery of two A320s from Airbus and no Airbus A330s.

Deccan is a low-cost carrier that Kingfisher acquired and recently rebranded Kingfisher Red.

Kingfisher has been losing money and, like many carriers in India, has decided to scale back capacity in response to a drop in consumer demand.

According to Flight's ACAS database Kingfisher still has nearly 50 A320s in its fleet and another 29 on order, plus it has five A330s with 15 on order.

The carrier also has Airbus A340s, Airbus A350s, Airbus A380s and ATR 72s on order.