CHENNAI: Passengers who flew out from Chennai via the cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) must consider themselves lucky, as a sizeable number of flights from other metros stood cancelled for the second day running. The scenes of chaos and cancelled status against Kingfisher’s name on the announcement board that have been seen in Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi had almost no parallel in Chennai. A source within the airline confirmed that only two flights, to Delhi and Coimbatore, had not been operated as the flights had not arrived for the transfer trip, the source added.Contrary to rumours that flights to Two Tier cities from metros, which KFA holds a major stake over, would be hit badly, the heavily booked flight from Thoothukudi arrived here on time. But, KFA’s official statement made late Saturday night that the disruptions were due to ‘unexpected events’ that included ‘bird strikes’ did little to mask the fact that their bank accounts had been frozen by tax authorities.“We have resolved such issues in the past and will do so again,” said a spokesperson. They added that they had made a request to the consortium of 18 banks asking for working capital, which was pending the “approval of individual banks”.The airline which dropped 32 flights from their already reduced schedule of 240 flights daily, said that services would be restored in ‘four days’. Aviation experts have pointed out that even Air India took longer to recover when their accounts were under the scanner. Though travel websites offer bookings on KFA flights after next week, which has been left blank, most flights from Chennai on the KFA site flash a ‘sold out’ message.
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