No immediate plan to cancel Kingfisher Airlines licence: aviation regulator

The Directorate General for Civil Aviation or DGCA has no plans to cancel Kingfisher Airlines licence right now, Bharat Bhushan, DGCA told reporters after a meeting with Vijay Mallya, Kingfisher Airlines chairman on Tuesday.

“KFA has submitted a curtailed operation plan. There no plan to cancel the licence till now,” Bhushan said at the end of the meeting.

He emphasised that DGCA’s job was to see that operations are conducted efficiently. “There is no cause for panic. Mallya has given schedule for 16 aircrafts, down from 28 aircrafts last month,” Bhushan added.

Bhushan said that he cannot share conclusions of the meeting and that there was no deadline to submission of the report to the government.

“KFA is severely in need of funds and Mallya has a plan which I don’t want to disclose right now,” he said.

However, Bhushan said that he was not convinced of the company’s ability to pay off liability. Mallya did not give any assurances on salary payment to employees either.

On his way out from DGCA, Mallya told reporters that international operations would be closed. “Does not make sense to operate international flights till accounts are unfreezed,” he said.