Kingfisher airlines, which has been pulled up by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for accepting bookings from October 13 (the day it proposed to end its lockout) ,has now deferred the booking to October 21.
The debt-ridden airline, on its website, is accepting booking for trips to be made on or after October 21 by stating that flights to various destinations are available along with a disclaimer on the website stating: “All flights are subject to regulatory approval.”
Though the airline has heeded the notice sent by the DGCA to stop accepting bookings from October 13 by stating that ‘no flights are found’, on the booking time-table of its website, it has displayed that flights to various destinations from October 15 to October 20 have been soldout.
For instance, on the booking time-table between October 15 and October 20 on the Bangalore-Mumbai and the Bangalore-New Delhi routes, Kingfisher (which operates two flights each day to both the destinations) states that all tickets have been sold out.
Kingfisher airlines, which has stopped its flight operations since October 1 following a strike called by its employees owing to non-payment of salaries for several months, had announced that it would start accepting bookings from October 5, October 7 and October 8. Resuming of booking was deferred on all the three dates.
On October 5, the airline was served a show-cause notice by the DGCA and asked to reply in 15 days.
To this, Kingfisher had said that it would send a detailed response well in time and also submit a comprehensive plan for restoring services after negotiations with its employees.
Meanwhile, travel agents in the city have stopped accepting booking for Kingfisher airlines and are advising customers to opt for other airlines.
“Kingfisher has not paid the Travel Agent Commission to us for the past three months and we have stopped undertaking bookings. We also advise our customers to opt for other airlines as Kingfisher is not paying any refund in the event of flight cancellation,” said Danish Ahmed of Voyages and Vocations, a travel agency.
