Oct. 1 – Kingfisher Airlines, rapidly challenging Air India’s dominance in the aviation industry, has announced it will be adding new international routes from next year to its existing roster to Dubai, Hong Kong, Thailand, London and Singapore.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the company’s 14th annual general meeting, Vijay Mallya, chairman and CEO of the company, said that the company was “looking at new routes only from next year,” but that the company needed to be cautious. “In the domestic market, Kingfisher intends to launch services to Ludhiana (Punjab) and Pantnagar (Uttarakhand) which till date had no proper air connectivity,” he said.

According to Mallya, Kingfisher Airlines is focused on revenues and not on other variables, such as market share or seat (load) factor. The carrier intends to complete its fund-raising plans at the earliest.

According to The Economic Times, the company plans to take around Rs10 billion through a rights and global depository receipt issue. The company also utilized Rs10.5 billion of the Rs20 billion line-of-credit secured from a consortium of Indian banks earlier this year.

While noting that business sentiments had improved since last August, Mallya noted that the 30 percent compounded growth rate witnessed during the past five years is not expected to return. “The growth of civil aviation is linked to GDP growth,” he said.