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Kingfisher cancels more flights, DGCA orders inquiry 
Vibha Sharma /TNS

New Delhi, February 19
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation ( DGCA) today launched an inquiry into the flight cancellations by Kingfisher and other airlines during the past few days. The airlines are required to secure prior approval of the DGCA before curtailing flight schedules and cancelling flights. But Kingfisher apparently did not keep the DGCA informed. Cancellations left passengers stranded for the second consecutive day on Sunday.

The airlines cancelled several flights, as many as 13 from Bangalore alone, from Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Kolkata on Sunday, causing great inconvenience to passengers, most of whom received no warning from the carrier. The airlines came out with an explanation that the cancellations were due to unavoidable circumstances like bird-hits. It pledged to restore the flights by late next week.

But aviation experts, who described the large-scale cancellations as “unprecedented in India’s aviation history”, remained unconvinced and told The Tribune that with the airlines grounding 15 to 20 aircrafts, it owed a better explanation to the passengers. In all probability, they said on condition of anonymity, the cash-strapped airlines was finding it difficult to pay for both fuel and the airport charges.

The civil aviation ministry, meanwhile, is learnt to be working on a package to bail out not just Kingfisher but also Air India and other bleeding airlines. Their financial standing, liabilities and debts and requirement of working capital etc are being examined by a working group under the chairmanship of civil aviation secretary Nasim Zaidi. The group is studying the implications of allowing airlines to directly import aviation fuel ( ATF) and the feasibility of allowing Foreign Direct Investment ( FDI) 49 per cent stake in Indian carriers. Meanwhile, the DGCA chief EK Bharat Bhushan indicated that messages have been sent out by the DGCA to all airlines to accommodate passengers stranded due to flight cancellations by Kingfisher, without charging higher fare.

“We will operate the full schedule on our booking system within the next four days,” Kingfisher spokesman said. Airline CEO Sanjay Aggarwal was quoted as saying that the situation will improve in a week’s time.

“We are not going to pull out operations from any base and 10 aircrafts will be back in service soon. We are in talks with investors and the airline will soon get recapitalised," he said. Admitting that the airlines had reduced the winter schedule of 240 flights every day to 208, he added, “ "We confirm that our Bank accounts were attached by the tax authorities. However, this has happened in the past not just to us but also to Air India. We have resolved issues before and will do so again," he said. Today’s flight disruptions come barely two days after high fuel costs and falling revenue resulted in Kingfisher Airline losses in the third quarter of the current fiscal -- mounting to Rs.444 crore from a net loss of Rs.254 crore in the same quarter last year. The airline suffered a loss of Rs 1,027 crore in 2010-11 and has a debt of Rs 7,057.08 crore.

"We have had a good meeting with our consortium of banks, and they have accepted, in principle, the viability study prepared by SBI Capital markets and independent consultants,” Aggarwal said. "Our request for additional working capital has also been acknowledged by the consortium and is subject to individual bank approvals,” said the airline.