New Delhi, April 24:
The Airports Authority of India will file a recovery suit against
Kingfisher Airlines to get back Rs 240 crore that the cash-strapped
airline owes the state-run airport operator.
Official sources told Business Line that the decision to seek court
intervention to recover the funds has been approved at the highest
level.
The decision to file a recovery suit was taken after AAI officials
realised that seeking a corporate guarantee from the airline will not
help them recover the pending monies.
The recovery suit is likely to be filed in a Delhi court soon,
sources indicated. The process involves the court selling assets of
Kingfisher Airlines to recover the monies due to AAI. Although sources
confirmed that most of the aircraft, which the airline is operating, are
on lease, so recovering money by seizing the aircraft would not be
easy.
The recovery suit will also include directors on the board.
As the present situation amounts to ?falsification of financial
statement' and directors are signatories to such a statement, the source
added.
Earlier, there was an incidence, when the state-run airport operator blocked an aircraft of a private domestic airline.
But the lesser of the aircraft managed to get it unblocked by saying
the payment issue is not between it and the airport operator but
between the airline and the airport operator.
Somehow, the airline managed to repay the amount. The airline is no
more operational. Despite repeated attempts, Kingfisher Airlines
officials were unavailable for comments. The airline, which has a debt
of $1.3 billion, is under pressure from its lenders to inject fresh
equity.
The debt-laden carrier terminated operations to 28 of its 56
destinations, including Hyderabad and Kolkata, over the past few days
and asked about 40-50 per cent of its staff to stay at home till further
orders. With this truncated operation, Kingfisher has become the
smallest one among scheduled commercial airlines. According to the
latest traffic data, released by DGCA, its market share came down to 6.4
per cent in March.
The AAI move comes against the back drop of sundry outstanding
against various organisations crossing the Rs 2,000-crore mark. Official
sources said that AAI has also written to the Government seeking its
intervention to recover the money owed by Air India.
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