Kingfisher Airlines is facing troubled times. If you are booked to fly on of the Kingfisher flights, here is how you can avoid the agony at the airport

I’ve started from a clean slate three times over to write this piece and all because of the same reason, a new development with respect to the airline named above. As I write this, Kingfisher Airlines is suspended from the IATA’s International Clearing House (ICH), Billing and Settlement Plan and Cargo Accounts Settlement System. Early February 2012, it was suspended from the IATA’s International Clearing House and it took the airline about a week or more to get reinstated. 

What has happened of late to Kingfisher Airlines?

Let me simplify these operations. The ICH is where airlines settle their bills amongst themselves. So, if Kingfisher Airlines booked you on a trip to the USA using a Kingfisher flight till London and another airline flies you from London to your destination in the USA, Kingfisher Airlines owes money to this airline for the ticket on the other airline. If Kingfisher Airlines does not pay the dues in time, your ticket might be affected by the other carrier who may choose to dishonour your ticket (since it never received a payment for it).

 As a fall-out of the suspension in February, Cathay Pacific discontinued its agreement to sell tickets with Kingfisher Airlines. This meant, you could go to Hong Kong on a Kingfisher Airlines ticket, but not go further to China or another Cathay Pacific destination with the same ticket because Cathay did not want to be at risk of not receiving payments for flying passengers booked by Kingfisher Airlines. 

The Billing and Settlement Plan is used by agents to book tickets on various airlines using IATA approved systems, and then pay for them in one go to IATA, which further pays all airlines individually. Not having its presence on this platform means you can no longer book Kingfisher Airlines tickets using your next door travel agent, unless, they have a direct relationship with Kingfisher Airlines. After this announcement, I called a few travel agents companies and even the ones next door, who have been unable to book Kingfisher Airlines tickets on their ticketing systems.

Also, the repercussions of its frequent cancellations are many and lead to an unpredictable travel schedule for those booked on the airline. Also, in the wake of the recent events internal to Kingfisher Airlines, it further pruned down its schedule to operate about 200 flights daily.

Here, I try and put together a few suggestions for you if you are in a situation where you have to deal with the airline, to make sure you don’t have to go through the agony at the airport.

What to do if you booked to fly with them domestically?

If you are booked on a domestic flight with Kingfisher Airlines, you should head up to its website and see if your booked flight is a part of the new schedule (as of 5 March 2012) Kingfisher Airlines is operating under as of date. You can find the schedule here: http://www.flykingfisher.com/pdf/Flight_schedule_5March2012.pdf. 

Customers will usually be rebooked on a new flight if their earlier flight was cancelled. Sometimes, these schedules will not suit you. For example, if you were booked to go to Jaipur on a 6am flight and now booked on a 6pm flight instead, I hazard a guess this affects your plans materially. You should hear from the airline on email or SMS, or you can go to this page to check the status of your ticket: http://www.flykingfisher.com/plan-book/manage-booking.aspx.

 If you are experiencing inconvenience with the flight details, you should call the airline and request for an earlier flight, or better still, accommodate you on another carrier which will be able to bring you to your destination in time. Kingfisher might want to still keep you on its own flights, but if you play hardball, you may be able to get it your way. If you cancel and take your refund, you are basically letting Kingfisher get away with the misery it is putting you in since the onus to buy the new ticket to your destination is on you, and ticket prices may have shot up as the travel date comes closer.  

However, if everything goes hunky dory and you are in for a last minute surprise by the airline, the DGCA circular on facilities for cancellation of flights and delay in flights should come to help (http://dgca.nic.in/cars/D3M-M4.pdf). Most of the times, the airline will seek to blame the cancellation on force majeure (events beyond its control), but I don’t see how not being able to fuel their planes or paying their taxes are beyond its control since all this is a part of their day to day activity. While I will not go into all the details of a delayed or cancelled flight for now, if the airline did not inform you up to three hours prior on the delay, they are in the wrong. 

What to do if you booked to fly with them internationally?

If you are booked only to fly to a destination where Kingfisher Airlines takes you, go over the same steps as stated above. However, if you are doing much more flying than just Kingfisher, I’d advise you to book your tickets with Kingfisher Airlines and the rest of the flights separately. If you can help it, leave enough time in the midst for eventualities, because if you miss your connections when booked separately, the other airline will not claim responsibility for you. 

If you can’t segregate your reservations, please call up the other airline and make sure you talk to them before hand to be sure they will accept you on the flight in spite of the fact that your ticket was sold to you along with a Kingfisher Airlines ticket. If possible, take an email confirmation and keep it with you when you fly.

More importantly, if you had a choice, switch to another carrier which is providing more reliable service to your destination at this point of time, till Kingfisher Airlines can fix up its issues and get back on track. 

One final thing, I normally don’t buy trip insurance which seems to be bundled by every travel website or airline website these days. However, under current circumstances, that may be a good idea given the fast changing nature of events with the airline under discussion.  

Safe travels!

AJ writes a travel and aviation focussed blog from India at www.livefromalounge.com. You can follow him at @livefromalounge on Twitter.