Kingfisher seeks hike in bank loan limit

New Delhi: Ailing Kingfisher airlines on Friday said it has not asked for a bailout from the government but admitted requesting banks to increase the loan limits to enable it meet rising operating costs due to increase in fuel prices and rupee devaluation.

"Kingfisher has not made any bail out request to the government. We have only asked our banks for an increase in limits due to significant increase in operating costs caused by increase in fuel prices and rupee devaluation," Sanjay Aggarwal, CEO, Kingfisher Airlines, said tonight in a statement.

On the DGCA showcause notice on flight cancellations, he said, "We did not feel the need for informing DGCA. In hindsight, we should have informed them and we apologised to them for the same."

On speculation about the closure of the airlines, he said Kingfisher does not see any risk to its future or long term viability.

Though the airline had maintained that the flight operations will normalise after November 19, the reconfiguration initiative will require up to 3 aircraft to be out of service over the next three months at any one time for this exercise to be completed.

"It will reduce the number of fleet configurations from 7 to 3, improving operational flexibility. This initiative will add more seats to the fleet, improving revenue production of each aircraft," he said.

Aggarwal said no Kingfisher flight has been cancelled due to lack of pilots or other staff.

"The attrition of 100 pilots did not happen overnight. Kingfisher has sufficient number of pilots and a robust pipeline of new pilots to continue to operate its scheduled flights," he said.

Admitting that there has been a few days delay for the last 2-3 months in payment of employee salaries, he said all employees have been paid in the month the salaries were due.

Kingfisher Airlines has rationalised its network to offer maximum and seamless connectivity and as per the revised schedule, it will offer 300 daily flights connecting 54 cities as compared to its previous schedule of 340 flights.

Aggarwal also said guests remain Kingfisher's top priority and that they reached out to all their guests who were booked on these cancelled flights to re-accommodate them either on our or other airline flights.

"We offered full refund to those who so desired. We apologise to the guests who might have been inconvenienced," he said.