KINGFISHER AIRLINES

Kingfisher Airlines was established in 2003. It was owned by the Bengaluru based United Breweries Group. The airline started commercial operations on 9 May 2005, right after Mallya's son Sidhartha's 18th birthday, reportedly as a birthday gift, with a fleet of four new Airbus A320-200s operating a flight from Mumbai to Delhi.[8][9][10] It started its international operations on 3 September 2008 by connecting Bengaluru with London. Kingfisher's head office was located in the Kingfisher House in Vile Parle (East), Mumbai,[11] but later moved to The Qube in Andheri (East), Mumbai. Its registered office was located in UB City, Bengaluru.[12][13] In November 2005, during the World economic forum, the airlines CEO Vijay Mallya announced the airlines intention to launch an IPO to raise 200 million dollars for the airlines expansion and possible takeovers (including that of Air Sahara which was being eyed at that time).[14] It later transpired that the airlines was already heavily in debt and going each year in heavy losses.[15] Bankruptcy, suspension of license and cessation of operations In November 2011, it started to report losses. The acquisition of loss-making Bengaluru-based Air Deccan in 2007 made matters worse.[16] It was believed that Vijay Mallya and his team failed to follow due diligence with the airline and that it was this deal that brought down his empire; courtesy of N M Rothschild consultants who brokered the deal.[17] An initial name change to Simplifly Deccan, followed by Kingfisher Red, and promotion as the domestic budget Kingfisher airline failed to stem losses and Kingfisher suffered a loss of over ?10 billion (US$130 million) for three consecutive years.