"My first suggestion to Kingfisher will be that look here you had a reputation for having outstanding crews. So help must come from within not as much from outside. In order to be sustainable once again it must correct its strategies. It should just scrap Kingfisher Red. It should pay less or equivalent to industry standards and not poach talent with the help of huge salaries. My operational strategy for the airline would be to first carry out a viability study of which limited routes it should operate at what prices, and then it should put all its energy into these routes, and win customers back with above par service. I can say with confidence that if tomorrow Kingfisher decides to offer only Business Class tickets in flights on select routes, guarantees that a flight will take off on time, and we know that its staff is being paid on time, then there are thousands of customers out there who will ensure that tickets will be sold out every time," Tekchandani, who has, in the past, been the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of Cement Corporation of India limited, India, and turned around this company, told this citizen journalist .

In the capacity of having been a Board Member (Operations) at International Airports Authority of India, Tekchandani says, "Kingfisher should keep ticket prices competitive and at the same time focus on converting catering and ground handling into strategic business units that are profitable. In this way, a potential plan grounded in reality will assure lenders and creditors."

For Mallya, shutting down the airline would be the easy way out - equivalent to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US when you close the business and disappear when a business runs out of cash to maintain cash flow and its credit with no responsibility for recovery. The big drawbacks are job losses, and irrevocable loss of brand equity. It is possible to revive a business and brand like Kingfisher without uttering the 'b' word - bailout - by working together and giving it one's best shot as it's not just a brand at stake or a personality but many jobs and the collective experience and expertise of Kingfisher in making passengers feel they are flying in luxury even while traveling in Economy class.

The hugely uphill road to profitability, and whether to take that road or not, are questions that will be debated for months to come because the numbers are presently just not adding up in Kingfisher's favour. As per the company’s annual report, Kingfisher has recorded a loss of Rs 2,328 but if regular accounting standards are followed then Kingfisher is under-reporting losses by Rs 1,116 as per a CNBC-TV18 report. The banks that have lent money to the airline are an extremely worried lot - with 17 banks having committed a massive Rs 7,000 crore. Then there's the even more alarming figure of Rs 8,000 in accumulated losses since May 2005, when the airline was launched.

The Chairman of the Institute of Applied Aviation Management Dr. P.C.K. Ravindran says that though it's a critical situation that any commercial airline can face if it fails to take timely corrective action, being in a narrow-based profit business - the situation is not totally hopeless.

"In its turnaround strategy, Kingfisher Airlines needs to focus on introspection of the key elements that led to the nose-dive; re-define and restructure the critical areas on a revival platform involving men, material and methods - somewhat difficult for an airline that has nose-dived as airline historical data re-confirms this statement; and revamping of image building process," Dr. P.C.K. Ravindran told this citizen journalist. 

Shashwat Chaturvedi, who is Editor-in-Chief of Sustainuance, India's first corporate sustainability magazine and executive director at Saaga, a new media startup, says that the time has come for Kingfisher and its promoter Vijay Mallya to look in the mirror and get their hands dirty to tidy the mess they have created. "Well, I do think that as a business it must be rescued for the greater good of travelers and for the aviation industry. But under no circumstances should it be at the cost of the public. Why should the tax payer bear the brunt for the excesses of Dr. Mallya? Kingfisher was a for-profit enterprise, and if it is making losses, it is because of the mismanagement and misjudgments of the board that it sank. Hence, UB Group needs to shoulder the responsibility and the losses," adding that a bit of moral public confession is required on part of Kingfisher. 

"Somehow, I feel that rather than half-hearted apologies and sentimental mails that blame the policy, the authorities, and the tax guys, Mallya must come clean and say, 'Patrons, am sorry, I f**** up. Give me another chance'," Chaturvedi told this citizen journalist. 

Will lenders and creditors take into consideration the respect that Kingfisher had gained in the past and build a fresh strategy around it? One might say this is sentimental reasoning but it is based on experience of many. "I have flown Kingfisher more than 15 times, and very many times I used to pay a premium to fly it even though I would have the option of buying cheaper tickets or getting on board non-stop flights. Put simply, I liked Kingfisher because of the way they made me feel special - especially with the way they used social media to be engaged with me. I am sad that Kingfisher is going through a terrible phase. But those who are meeting today or will meet in the future to seek a way out for the airline must not forget that it was once given a five-star rating by Skytrax - a stunning achievement by an Indian company in the fiercely competitive global aviation industry," says Arun Rajagopal, a social media manager at a Dubai-based company, who is a compulsive traveler, and loves airplanes. 

Purba Dutt, a journalist based out of Mumbai say that Kingfisher knows how to deliver top-class service and there's no reason why it can't promise and execute the same. "I loved the service, the air-hostesses, the in-flight services, and the punctuality. Even now I think that Kingfisher hostesses are the best, and the red colour is charming on them."

Apart from reasons related to proficiency in professional customer care, the strategic reason to salvage Kingfisher fits well with the present competitive imbalance in the Indian aviation industry. "One can't ignore the fact that the slow disintegration of Kingfisher has had a negative impact on the airline industry. The ticket prices have gone up though at the same time one has to say that fuel prices have also risen. But the stakeholders can correct this by not allowing Kingfisher to collapse, and see it as counter balancing measure within the industry," says Tekchandani.