New Delhi: Private airports will now allow cash-strapped Kingfisher to operate flights only after paying for each of them. Like the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the GMR and GVK Groups that manage Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad (from where Kingfisher is stopping operations) have also asked Kingfisher to enhance payments - despite a reduced schedule - to recover huge dues.
Kingfisher owes Rs 265 crore to AAI; Rs 55-60 crore to GMR Group and about Rs 75 crore to GVK. While the airline was put on cash-and-carry at almost all airports late last year, it has stopped paying even the daily amount for the past 15-20 days. Now these three airport operators have asked Kingfisher to not only pay the daily amount before operating flights, but also increase the payment to recover dues as the threat of a closure looms large over the airline. Senior officials at AAI and GMR confirmed this move, while GVK did not comment.
"Unlike airlines that would have a windfall gain from Kingfisher's closing down, our interest was in ensuring its survival. We have been very supportive so far and not pressed for payment of the daily amount so far as we did not want to act as the catalyst for the airline shutting down. But now we have to now try to get as much of our dues along with daily flight bill as possible ," said the chairman of a big airport group.
23/03/12 Saurabh Sinha/Economic Times
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
0 comments:
Post a Comment