Kingfisher Airlines

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship on July 31, 2005

The Economist recently ran a story on Vijay Mallya, entrepreneur, 'liquor king' and chairman of Bangalore based United Breweries (UB). Mr. Mallya who commands the world's second largest liquor company in the world by volume with the main brand Kingfisher beer is now pushing for a low-cost airline in India - named Kingfisher.

"Now Mr Mallya is putting these skills to work as he launches Kingfisher Airlines---named after UB's bestselling beer, a global curry-house favourite---not least by hiring government-owned Indian Airlines (IA) to carry out Kingfisher's ground handling and maintenance activities. That has allowed Mr Mallya to get the airline off the ground more quickly and at far less cost than if he had done it alone---a crucial advantage in what, following recent deregulation, has become a highly competitive domestic civil-aviation market. So too is the access he has secured for Kingfisher to IA's spacious new terminals in Delhi and Mumbai, while passengers of other private airlines, such as Jet Airways and Air Sahara (both of which are said to have good government connections, though Mr Mallya used his better this time) are crowded into old, cramped and unpleasantly hot buildings.

Above all, Mr Mallya has turned a potential enemy, India's powerful aviation bureaucracy, into an ally. Envious competitors wonder aloud how he achieved such a remarkable thing. Mr Mallya is certainly not shy about his effectiveness. "I have to manage governments in each state (for liquor sales), so I'm quite good at it," he says. He has apparently become even better since he was elected to India's upper house of Parliament in 2002 (though last year he did poorly in state assembly elections in his home state of Karnataka)."

The only shame there is no Kingfisher beer on Kingfisher flights - too bad that would be the catch for me.