Kingfisher, Jet Air owe Rs 1,775 cr to PSU oil cos

NEW DELHI: The top two players in the Indian airlines market — Kingfisher and Jet Airways — together owe Rs 1,774.6 crore to public sector oil companies for the four quarters ended June 30, 2010, the petroleum ministry informed the Lok Sabha on Thursday. This amount works out to be 94% of what all private airlines in the country have to pay to the oil companies for the said period.

Together, the six airlines owed Rs 1,887.8 crore to the three oil marketing companies (OMCs)—Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum for the given period—out of which Naresh Goyal-owned Jet Airways had dues amounting to Rs 960.2 crore and Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher had to pay Rs 814.5 crore to the oil companies.

On the other hand, low-cost carrier Indigo had the least dues of Rs 60 lakh to be paid only to Indian Oil (IOC). In contrast, Paramount Airways, currently flying only two aircraft, owes Rs 19.28 crore to Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL).

Meanwhile, the other two no-frills carriers SpiceJet and GoAir have dues of Rs 74.5 crore and Rs 18.8 crore respectively, towards IOC for the four quarters ending June 30, 2010, the statement in the Lok Sabha indicated.

In his written reply to the House, minister of state for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada, also clarified that holding up of payments by private airlines do not add to the losses of the OMCs as interest is recovered on overdue payments.

Defaulting airlines are also put on cash and carry by the OMCs, as HPCL has done with Kingfisher since July 2010. “In case airlines fail to pay their dues, OMCs take action for recovery of dues in line with the mutually agreed commercial terms between them and the airlines,” said Mr Prasada in the reply.

OMCs also encash bank guarantees and post-dated cheques for recovery of their outstanding dues wherever applicable, in line with the commercial terms agreed upon by airlines and the oil companies, it added.