Kingfisher, Nacil lock horns over ground-handling dues

Mumbai: Vijay Mallya-owned Kingfisher Airlines is locked in a dispute with the government-owned Nacil — the new company into which Air India and
Indian Airlines were merged. While Nacil claims that Kingfisher has defaulted on certain payments for ground-handling facilities, the latter says it is a commercial dispute.
Nacil was providing ground-handling facilities to Kingfisher. Differences have surfaced to a point where airlines are delaying payments and vat the same time, scrambling for funds to survive the crunch.
According to Nacil sources, instead of paying up the dues, Kingfisher has terminated the annual contract and raised an “absurd” bill, asking Nacil to pay for the ground-handling equipment purchased by the private airline. “The Kingfisher’s claim on us is hilarious. It’s like a passenger dissatisfied with Kingfisher’s services buying a business jet and asking Mr Mallya to foot the bill,” said an Nacil official.
When contacted, a Kingfisher Airlines spokesperson said: “Kingfisher Airlines had an arrangement with Indian Airlines whereby they undertook ground handling for Kingfisher Airlines. Because there was a deficiency in the services provided by them, the arrangement with them was terminated and a debit note was raised to account for the equipment that we had to purchase to meet the shortfall in the services provided by Air India.”
“We would like to clarify and categorically state that all dues payable to Air India for ground handling (after adjusting the amount of the debit note raised by us) have been cleared,” the spokesperson said. “As such, there is no question of default. It is now merely a matter of a commercial dispute with Air India claiming that the amount of the debit note is due to them whereas our stance is that it is not due and payable on account of the deficiency in services,” the spokesperson added.
13/11/08 Dev Chatterjee & Mithun Roy/Economic Times

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Categories: Kingfisher Nov 2008, NACIL Nov 2008