The government on Monday issued a letter of intent (LoI) confirming the sale of its 100 per cent stake in loss-making Air India to Tata Group for Rs 18,000 crore, a senior official said. Last week, the government had accepted an offer by Talace Pvt Ltd, a unit of the holding company of salt-to-software conglomerate, to pay Rs 2,700 crore in cash and takeover Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt. Subsequent to that, an LoI has now been issued to Tata confirming the government's willingness to sell its 100 per cent stake in the airline.
The airline needs at least Rs 1,000 crore to fly again.
SBI-led consortium of 17 banks had a total exposure of about Rs 6,500 cr to Kingfisher Airlines.
Asian and Middle Eastern airlines -- but no Indian names -- dominated the Top 10 slots at the World Airline Awards.
A consortium of lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) has agreed to provide loans to Tata Group for the smooth operations of loss-making Air India. Tata Group, which won the bid to acquire the national carrier along with Air India Express and 50 per cent stake in AISATS in October last year, is expected to formally takeover the airline on Thursday. Sources said the SBI-led consortium has agreed to grant both term loans and working capital loans depending on the airline's requirements. All large lenders, including Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, and Union Bank of India, are part of the consortium, they added.
Air India on Friday said it has completed the acquisition of its first A350-900 aircraft by way of a finance lease transaction with HSBC through the GIFT City. This is also the first wide body aircraft to be leased through the GIFT City, the country's first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). In a release, the airline said the transaction was facilitated by its wholly-owned subsidiary AI Fleet Services Ltd (AIFS) and is also the first financing transaction from the orders for 470 aircraft that were made earlier this year.
Phee Teik Yeoh, the recently anointed chief executive officer of the airline, speaks to Business Standard on his aim of changing the rule of the game in the aviation sector by redefining service and operational experience for travellers accustomed to mere functionality.
With promoters unable to raise money, airline may find it difficult to sustain curtailed operations.
The lawsuits filed for recovering dues of Rs 300 crore from Kingfisher Airlines is exclusive of payments guarantees given by banks.
Babus may now use private telecom, airline services
The sources said the aircraft was allotted a remote bay C-33 instead of a Contact Stand, an aircraft parking stand that is suitable for walking passengers to and from an aircraft from an allocated boarding gate. This further added to passenger woes and deprived them the opportunity to avail basic facilities like rest rooms and refreshments at the terminal, they added.
The parent entity, (Holdings) Ltd, have also expressed concern over the company's significant exposure to the airline.
Salome Singsit, 39, approached the apex court challenging the decision of Airline Allied Services Ltd, a subsidiary of Air India, alleging that the airline had arbitrarily refused to renew her contract.
India will approve plans by two state-owned airlines to buy new planes only after it decides whether or not to sell part of its stakes in the carriers, the civil aviation minister said on Tuesday.
On July 25 and 26, the regulator's team carried out the surveillance of Air India in the areas of internal audit, accident prevention work and availability of required technical manpower.
Airline's lenders to meet next week to discuss next move.
In what could be the first, state-sponsored airline company in the country, the Kerala cabinet on Wednesday gave an in-principle approval for setting up an aviation company in the joint sector to operate international services.
The CBI has launched an initial probe over the loan against both companies, a spokeswoman for the agency said on Saturday.
Two aborted missions, three different ministers, multiple rule changes and two decades later, Indian taxpayers will no longer have to pay Rs 20 crore per day to keep the loss-making Air India flying. While opposition Congress expectedly attacked the decision as selling the family silver, DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said what Tata is getting is not a cash cow but an airline which is bleeding where money needs to be pumped in to refurbish obsolete aircraft and dust up strangled ones while being unable to touch any employee for one year and only be able to resize staff after paying a VRS. "It won't be a very easy task there. Only advantage is they (new Air India owner) are paying the price which they think they can manage. "They are not taking the excessive debt accumulated to fund years of losses. We are continuing it as an ongoing concern.... This process has also saved huge amount of taxpayers money going forward," Pandey told PTI.
Jet fuel or ATF price on Wednesday was cut by almost 6 per cent after four rounds of monthly increases since July, while commercial cooking gas (LPG) rates were raised by a steep Rs 101.5 per 19-kg cylinder in line with international benchmarks. However, the price of domestic LPG - used in household kitchens for cooking purposes - remained unchanged at Rs 903 per 14.2-kg cylinder. Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) price was cut by Rs 6,854.25, or 5.79 per cent, in the national capital to Rs 111,344.92 per kl from Rs 118,199.17, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers.
Taking a step forward in its $500 million deal to snap up Air Sahara, Jet Airways on Thursday announced it had reached an understanding with the other airline to provide consultancy support to improve its performance in various fields.
A total of 17 cases have been filed against Kingfisher Airlines in different courts over outstanding amount of Rs 22.5 crore, which it owes to GMR
Starting the process of incorporating a new company for its proposed aviation venture with Singapore Airlines, Tata group has sought to register this entity as 'Tata SIA Airlines Limited'.
The agency is looking at alleged "diversion of funds and financial reporting frauds".
This is the third enforcement action against a Tata Group airline in over a month.
A court in Mumbai on Thursday remanded Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal to 14-day judicial custody in a money laundering case linked to an alleged fraud of Rs 538 crore at the Canara Bank. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Goyal on September 1 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) following a long session of questioning at the central agency's office in Mumbai.
Kingfisher Chief Executive Sanjay Aggarwal met officials at the ministry of civil aviation to discuss the revival plan, which was earlier rejected by the regulator.
Frankfinn Aviation Services Pvt Ltd on Thursday said it will start a low-cost airline by 2009
They say better late than never. For the Tatas, the original owners of Air India, bringing back the airline to its fold is worth the wait even if the attempt to privatise the bleeding national carrier by successive governments has taken over two decades. While many airlines have come and gone from the Indian skies since the time when the first move was made to privatise Air India to date, the salt-to-software conglomerate has never let the love affair with aviation, more so with Air India that its former chairman Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (JRD) had, to go off the radar. It is said that Tata group executives used to complain in private that JRD -- the pioneer of the Indian aviation industry -- spent more time worrying about Air India than the Tata group when he was heading both the entities.
As Prabhakaran was leaving his house, Rajiv Gandhi called his son Rahul and asked him to fetch his (Gandhi's) bulletproof jacket. He put the jacket on Prabhakaran's back and remarked with his usual charming smile: "Take care of yourself."
The court had earlier issued non-bailable warrants against Kingfisher Airlines, its chairman Mallya and A Raghunathan, on the ground of dishonouring the two cheques
The order on the quantum of punishment was adjourned for the fourth time.
'I think some of us, like Mukesh Ambani, myself and those of us who head industrial units, ought to really focus on what we can really do to make the world a safer place, maybe 50 or 100 years from now.' 'For instance, how can we deal with climate change and global warming, right now?' 'The effects of it may not be felt now; in fact, we may pay a price for it today, but it will help the generations to follow.'
Banks do extensive investigation before declaring an account fraud; they owe it to us as they deal with our money. Why would they try to fix an innocent borrower? asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Some airlines, says Anjuli Bhargava, are convinced there's a conspiracy to malign them.
Currently, Kingfisher offers international flights to just London and Colombo, Kingfisher Airlines Ltd vice-president (Global Sales) Siva Ramachandran said, adding that there is a proposal for including destinations like Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Dhaka, Dubai and Maldives.
Air India Express and AirAsia India have moved to a unified reservation system, whereby passengers can make bookings for both airlines through an integrated website. The move is part of the ongoing process of merging AirAsia India with Air India Express. The combined entity will focus on leisure-oriented and price-sensitive markets.
