Huge Failure Of Kingfisher

775 Words4 Pages
A huge failure 'I am taking things personally,' Vijay Mallya, chairman of Kingfisher Airlines, says when it comes to running his airline. Perhaps this is one reason why the airline is in shambles. Lack of delegation is being talked about as the major move that Mallya did not undertake when running the airline. Frequent changes Unlike his other two major businesses - the spirits and beer segments - which have been running exceptionally smoothly under the helm of managing directors, the airline has been crash landing because of one trouble or another with frequent changes in strategy and direction as well as the absence of no long term CEO or MD. While Mallya is indeed closely associated with strategic decisions at United Breweries (UB-India's largest brewer) and United Spirits (India's largest spirits player), he is understood to have been more than closely associated with day to day operations of the airline. Hit badly Started as a full-service carrier, Kingfisher Airlines then added a low-cost model, expanded it further, only to fold it up and go back to the initial focus of full service - all this in a period of just six years. 'Long term strategy and laser focus is indeed essential when it comes to running an airline business. Such frequent change in focus has not helped the airline, which has also been hit badly by external factors,' an industry analyst tracking Kingfisher Airlines said. Strong initial opposition When the idea of starting an airline was debated at the UB headquarters, there was strong opposition from his close aides. But Mallya prevailed. 'We had a series of discussions and many of us said that if we have to start a new business, mobile telephony is an option instead of an airline. Leveraging the Kingfisher brand in the mobile telephony space would have worked wonders to expand our empire, but somehow we could not

More about Huge Failure Of Kingfisher

Open Document