Five private airlines owe a whooping Rs. 357 crore to the Airport Authority
27 Aug, 2013
The reply to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed that five private airlines, including those which have closed down, have over Rs. 350 crore as dues pending towards Airport Authority of India (AAI).
The reply to the application, given by the Airports Authority of India, states that Kingfisher Airlines, Paramount Airways, Jet Airways, JetLite and SpiceJet owe Rs. 357.39 crore to the Airports Authority of India (AAI). The total amount pending with Kingfisher Airlines as on March 31, 2013 was Rs. 175.30 crore. This was followed by Jet Airways with Rs. 80.38 crore, SpiceJet with Rs. 80.17 crore, JetLite with Rs. 19.76 crore and Paramount Airways with Rs. 1.75 crore as dues towards AAI.
Out of the five airlines, Kingfisher Airlines and Paramount Airways have ceased to operate. The AAI has said that it has initiated action for retrieving dues from the two while for the remaining three airlines it will pursue the cases through correspondence. However, the mails sent to Jet Airways, JetLite and SpiceJet remained unanswered, claims AAI. The AAI can charge penal interest on delay in settlement of the dues and if the delay persists, it can resort to encashing the security amount and the defaulting airlines can be put on cash-and-carry basis.