Nacil, Kingfisher make part payment of oil dues

New Delhi/Mumbai: India’s three biggest airlines, which collectively owe almost Rs3,000 crore to oil firms, have started repaying the dues they have run up on purchases of jet fuel.
The country’s biggest airline by passengers carried, Jet Airways (India) Ltd, has paid Indian Oil Corp. Ltd, or IOC, Rs145 crore—the first payment of a six-instalment plan.
Jet’s closest rivals, Kingfisher Airlines Ltd and state-owned National Aviation Co. of India Ltd, or Nacil, also paid part of their dues to IOC, an executive at India’s largest oil firm said, declining to be named because he is not authorized to speak with the media.
“Nacil and Kingfisher have made the payment of Rs73 crore and Rs11 crore, respectively, as against the first instalment amount of Rs80 crore and Rs18 crore, respectively. Kingfisher Airlines is saying that the Rs7 crore amount has to be adjusted against previous bills, the details of which can only be ascertained tomorrow (Tuesday),” the IOC executive said. Nacil runs the Air India airline service.
Details of the airline firms’ payments due to other state-run oil firms such as Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd and Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd were not immediately available.
In all, Nacil, Jet Airways and Kingfisher owe Rs2,926 crore—split into Rs886 crore, Rs1,057 crore and Rs983 crore, respectively—to the three oil firms. Of this, payment of Rs2,131 crore is overdue beyond the credit period airlines have with the oil firms, which expect losses of Rs1.22 trillion this fiscal. It is not known how much each airline owes each oil firm.
17/11/08 Utpal Bhaskar, P.R. Sanjai and Tarun Shukla /Livemint

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Categories: Kingfisher Nov 2008, NACIL Nov 2008