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Jet-KF alliance departs in six months

In India, two of the country’s biggest private airlines (Jet and Kingfisher) will launch their partnership in six months.

KF chief Vijay Mallya and Jet owner Naresh Goyal are scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss the details of the alliance. Both airlines have expressed successful negotiations with each other, so far.

“Just because we don’t announce everything does not mean the deal is not working,” clarified Mallya in a press statement. “The alliance is going perfectly fine. It takes time to work things out but I have spoken to Goyal and both of us have reaffirmed the partnership,” Mallya concluded.

The airlines are currently synchronizing their flight schedules and code sharing to make the partnership fully-operational. “One project is taken at a time. If you decide that frequencies on a particular route operated by either Kingfisher or Jet are going to be changed, it is not as simple as making one phone call to the planning department and saying stop the flight,” Mallya explained.

The basic idea behind the partnership is economic. Since private jet makers are now starving for funding, these companies have nowhere else to turn to but each other. Currently, the public sector—in general—is not seeking to bail out the private jet industry. The government is spreading capital elsewhere.