Kingfisher Airline has suspended all its seven flights from Calcutta for nine days from Sunday, fuelling speculation that the cash-strapped carrier will bid bye to the city skies.

The Vijay Mallya-promoted airline grounded its daily Calcutta-Delhi flight this week and officials said operations on the other routes from the city, too, would remain grounded from February 19 to 28.

The airline’s website shows bookings for all its flights from Calcutta have been suspended during the period.

The cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines' operations from tier-II and tier-III cities are likely to be affected until March end, industry sources said.

"The number of Kingfisher flights has come down to 160 a day from 240 flights a day. It is likely to continue like this. They seem to have shut down Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Srinagar, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Flights to more locations could be affected as they have lots of aircraft on ground," an industry source said here today.

The airline has not issued any statement on its Kolkata operations despite flights from Kolkata to Delhi, Mumbai, Bhubaneswar, Bagdogra, Aizwal, Silchar, Dhaka and Bangkok being taken off the ticketing sites.

Incidentally, KA has been directed by its lenders including the State Bank of India to reverse the nearly Rs 100-crore guarantee commission it paid to promoter Vijay Mallya and UB Holdings, as a pre-condition to consider the second round of bailout.