Kingfisher Red

Kingfisher Red is a low-cost domestic airline in India, operated by one of the leading names in the civil aviation industry of the country - Kingfisher Airlines. Headquartered in Bangalore, India, Kingfisher Red was named as Simplifly Deccan and prior to that, as Air Deccan. The airline plies scheduled flights to a number of destinations within India, as well as flies to major cities abroad. It is a popular choice of passengers traveling via air in India, because of the complimentary onboard facilities provided by it as well as its services at ground. The passengers are benefited by the frequent flyer miles, for tickets booked through the King Club loyalty program, run by its parent company - Kingfisher Airlines. Check out more information on the history and profile of Kingfisher Red, in the following lines.

History

Inception
Air Deccan (the old name of Kingfisher Red) was incepted by Captain G.R. Gopinath, in August 2003. Its first flight took off from Hyderabad, with destination to Vijaywada, on August 23, 2003. The airline gained popularity as the common man's airline, because of its reasonable air fare. Air Deccan's aircrafts carried an attractive logo of two palms joined to signify a bird flying. The airline carried the tagline - 'Simplifly', which signified that now it was possible for the common man to travel via air. The airline held the distinction of being the first airline in India, to fly to 'second tier' cities including Hubbali, Mangalore, Madurai and Visakhapatnam.

Downfall
Air Deccan planned to offload 25 percent of its stake in the Initial Public Offering (IPO), which was opened on May 18, 2006. Since stock market was severely affected at that time, the IPO released by Air Deccan didn't manage to scrape through, even through it extended the issue closing date and reduced its price band. However, even when it was finally listed on the stock market, its share price reduced drastically and became a meager 50 percent. Due to the prevalent competition in the Indian civil aviation sector and the addition of more and more airlines to the industry, almost all the domestic carriers, including Air Deccan, ran into heavy losses.

Merger
Pressurized by the heavy losses, Air Deccan founder Captain Gopinath announced the merger of Air Deccan with Kingfisher Airlines, on December 19, 2007. Following the merger, Air Deccan was renamed to Simplifly Deccan and later on to Kingfisher Red. The airline became the first domestic low-cost carrier to ply its flights to international destinations as well. The merger was made official on April 2008. At that time, liquor industry giant Vijay Mallya, who was also the CMD of Kingfisher Airlines, became the CEO of the newly formed airline company.

Destinations
Kingfisher Red flies to as many as 65 destinations within India, including Srinagar, Leh, Jammu, Pathankot, Dharamshala, Kullu, Shimla, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Delhi, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Ahmedabad, Kandla, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Indore, Vadodara, Bholap, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Lucknow, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Raipur, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Bhubaneshwar, Kolkata, Bagdogra, Agartala, Aizwal, Silchar, Imphal, Dimapur, Guwahati, Jorhat, Lilabari, Dibrugarh, Mumbai, Pune, Kolhapur, Belgaum, Goa, Hubli, Hyderabad, Tirupathi, Vidyanagar, Vijaywada, Rajamundary, Vizag, Managalore, Bangalore, Chennai, Calicut, Coimbatore, Trichy, Cochin, Madurai, Trivandrum, Port Blair and Tuticorin. Apart from this, the airline has included few more destinations.