Vijay Mallya Reveals New Details on Kingfisher Airlines Collapse and 2008 Financial Crisis Impact

Fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya, who is facing allegations of fraud and money laundering, has shared new information about why Kingfisher Airlines failed. He said that he spoke to the Finance Minister at the time, Pranab Mukherjee, with a plan to reduce the size of the airline in order to save it. According to Mallya, his request was refused.

In a discussion with YouTuber Raj Shamani, Mallya talked again about the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines, saying that most of the airline’s problems were caused by the global financial crisis in 2008. He explained that Kingfisher Airlines worked well up until 2008, but things changed badly when the financial crisis started. The economic slowdown had a big effect on India and hurt almost every part of the economy, he added.

Mallya said the money stopped flowing, it dried up, and the value of the Indian rupee also went down.

Kingfisher Airlines began operating in 2005 and got good reviews for its high-quality service. But as the world economy got worse, the company’s money problems increased. Mallya said that because the economy was getting worse, he spoke to Pranab Mukherjee to get permission to reduce Kingfisher’s operations.

He told Mukherjee that he had a problem and that Kingfisher Airlines needed to reduce the number of airplanes and lay off some workers because he could no longer afford to run the airline with the poor economic situation.