Kingfisher Airlines: Regulator wants revised schedule by tomorrow

The Director General of Civil Aviation has given time till tomorrow to Kingfisher Airlines to revise the flight schedule. Bharat Bhushan, DGCA told reporters that the airline should get back on track in a realistic manner. The airline is operating about 175 flights daily and the DGCA is keeping a close watch on the operation of the company.

According to the ground staff, the company has 28 flights airborne out of 64 flights operational as of Tuesday, DGCA said.

The company has told the DGCA that employee salaries for the month of December 2011 would be paid by the end of February and January 2012 salaries by 20 March 2012.

Here are latest updates:

* Kingfisher had been asked to explain why flights have been cancelled since Saturday without informing the DGCA. Mr Bhushan said today that the airline had not shared enough information with passengers, causing unacceptable inconvenience. Kingfisher has closed down its Kolkata operations because staff there had not been paid salaries for months. The DGCA has asked the government to review the acceptability of this step.

* Out of Kingfisher’s 64 aircraft, 28 are operational. The DGCA is conducting a special safety surveillance of the planes in use, though Mr Bhushan said that there is no cause for concern and passengers need not be worried. Kingfisher has told the DGCA that it has enough cabin crew and pilots to manage its flights.

* DGCA has not accepted Kingfisher reason for flight cancellations. The company blamed the income tax department for seizing its accounts. But the airline has defaulted on taxes; and tax deducted at source for its employees has not been deposited yet with the income tax department.

* Kingfisher Airlines Kingfisher owes over Rs 7,000 crore to an 18 bank consortium led by State Bank of India. Lenders would meet again next week to finalise a restructuring package, sources told NDTV Profit. Lenders have all argued that the entire global aviation sector in trouble, that the airline should be helpedMajor banks lending to Kingfisher Airlines include State Bank of India at Rs 1,580 crore, IDBI Bank Rs 727.63 crore, Punjab National Bank at Rs 710.33 crore, Bank of India at Rs 575 crore and Bank of Baroda at Rs 537 crore.

* Shares of troubled carrier Kingfisher Airlines plunged over 15 per cent in early trade Tuesday over mass cancellations of flights. They recovered and traded at 6.5 per cent below last Friday’s close. The BSE Sensex was up nearly 40 points at 18,329. Shares of other domestic carriers, SpiceJet (6 per cent) and Jet Airways (2.7 per cent) traded with big gains.

* Kingfisher Airlines' CEO Sanjay Agarwal and other top officials appeared before the aviation regulator, the Director General of Civil Aviation or DGCA today to explain the large-scale disruption of operations and the reasons behind them.

* On Tuesday, 34 flights were cancelled. These include 5 from Mumbai, 6 from Delhi,18 from Bangalore and 5 from Hyderabad. On Monday, the airline cancelled 30 flights; half its flights from major metros were cancelled or delayed on Sunday. Sources have told NDTV that Kingfisher is operating only 16 aircraft, down from 64. After Kolkata and the North East stations were shut down, the next domestic centre likely to shut down is Hyderabad. Internationally, flight operations to Bangkok, Dhaka and Kathmandu have been shut. Colombo, sources say, will be shut down shortly. Of all Kingfisher Airlines international services, only the London flight is presently operating.

* Meanwhile, Kingfisher chief Vijay Mallya has apologised to fliers affected by its sudden flight cancellations. Speaking to NDTV, the airline baron admitted that Income Tax authorities had frozen the airlines bank accounts. "We tried to reach as many as possible, we tried to make alternative bookings, refunds," Mr Mallya told NDTV.

* Kingfisher reported losses of Rs 444 crore in the third quarter of this year - up from Rs 254 crore a year ago. Kingfisher's current debt is close to $1.3 billion or Rs 7,057.08 crore.

* Kingfisher has been lobbying hard with the government to allow foreign airlines to buy into Indian carriers, a proposal the government is now trying to push through as the country's biggest airlines show bleeding balance sheets.

* The company blamed freezing of bank accounts by income tax authorities as the reason for cancellation of flights. "We are in dialogue with the tax authorities. We have pointed out to them that this drastic action causes huge public inconvenience. Apart from the fact that if our flights get disrupted on a continued basis, then our revenue gets affected," Mr Mallya added.