New Delhi: Boeing may have agreed to pay US $650 million as compensation to cash-strapped Air India for undue delay in the delivery of Dreamliners, but it now emerges that half of that amount would be notional and adjusted towards cost escalation.
The balance $330 million would be settled as reduction in the price of each aircraft, to be supplied by 2016, to AI.
Citing the confidentiality clause and commercial interests, both Air India and Boeing refused to talk about the amount of compensation to be paid and the modus operandi to be followed. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had authorised AI in August last year to settle the compensation package for an undisclosed amount.
The state carrier had placed orders for 27 B-787 aircraft in 2005, with first delivery due in 2008 but arriving in September 2012. The delay of about four years disrupted AI’s expansion plans.
Following a Federal Aviation Administration directive on safety issues, its entire fleet of six 787 planes is now grounded.
04/02/13 Ajmer Singh/Financial Express
