Vacate all airport space, Airports Authority of India tells Kingfisher Airlines

NEW DELHI: It's eviction time for Kingfisher Airlines (KFA). The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has written to the grounded airline, asking it to vacate all office space it occupies at its various airports across the country. The authority has also asked the airline's management to vacate the two hangars-one each at Kolkata and Chennai- immediately. In response to the AAI eviction letter, Kingfisher CEO Sanjay Agarwal is learnt to have sought time to meet AAI top brass next week.

"Kingfisher has dues of over Rs 300 crore and they have shown no sign whatsoever of even trying to clear a part of it. In such a situation, we cannot allow them to continue occupying precious commercial space at airports and we have asked them to vacate the same. The only place which we cannot evict is the apron area where their aircraft are parked," said a senior official.
At present, almost 30 aircraft leased to KFA are parked across the country which airports, tax authorities and banks are not allowing to be repossessed by the lessors. Till some months ago, lessors used to take a couple of planes back after paying airport authorities a lump sum. But now with tax authorities and banks trying to recover their dues and holding aircraft as security, lessors have realized that paying airports alone may no longer be enough to get their planes back. Since forcible holding back of leased aircraft is in violation of international conventions, aviation secretary K N Shrivastava has now asked all agencies to securitize their dues from airlines and leave the leased planes alone.

"The Kingfisher example of forcibly holding back leased aircraft will make it tough for other Indian carriers to get planes. The ministry is now going to help KFA lessors take their planes back but the problem is that many of them are not airworthy due to massive interchange of spare parts among them. KFA did this - take working parts from planes - to keep some planes flying in its last days," said an official.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Vacate-all-airport-space-Airports-Authority-of-India-tells-Kingfisher-Airlines/articleshow/18855362.cms