Spicejet issue figures in Lok Sabha

NEW DELHI: The turbulence in Spicejet today figured in the Lok Sabha with a Trinamool Congress member demanding government intervention to save the airline.
Saugata Roy also said that air fares have shot up significantly and the government should do something to check the prices.

Roy, during the Zero Hour, referred to the grounding of Spicejet, saying it has created harrowing times for passengers and the airline is headed the Kingfisher way.

"Government must intervene in the matter of Spicejet grounding," Roy said.

Spicejet has total liabilities of Rs 2,000 crore which include dues to the public sector oil firms and the Airports Authority of India (AAI).

The last time an airline had to stop operations under mounting losses was two years ago when Kingfisher, which had outstanding of around Rs 6,000 crore, shut down.

He also said that the airfares in the peak holiday season have gone up significantly and government should intervene to check this.

Singh, who had yesterday met Civil Aviation Secretary V Somasundaran, refused to speak to reporters after his meeting with the minister. He had yesterday just said that SpiceJet had a "lot of potential".

S L Narayanan, CFO of SpiceJet's parent company Sun Group, had told PTI earlier, "We need some breathing time... If we get a reprieve from the banks, Mr (Kalanithi) Maran is ready to give guarantee we can restart the engine. Once the collection starts coming in, we will pay (the dues)."

Maran has already invested around Rs 820 crore in the last three years and he has invested whenever the airline has needed money, he had said.

In a statement, the airline announced "resumption of normal operations as of today, with all 230 flights scheduled to operate for the day, and sincerely apologises for the disruptions that occurred yesterday and the day before".

It also said it is now able to take bookings till March 28 of next year, adding that the "temporary restriction" of 30 days imposed on it in this regard by DGCA has already been removed.

Speaking on "large-scale" cancellations of SpiceJet tickets, sources in the travel industry said the airline would have to "regain confidence" of the general public as a majority of those who cancelled tickets were leisure travellers, most of whom cannot postpone their holidays.

The beleaguered carrier had pay to Rs three crore last evening to buy jet fuel for its planes.

The airline has total liabilities of Rs 2,000 crore which include dues to the public sector oil firms and the Airports Authority of India.

The last time an airline had to stop operations under mounting losses was two years ago when Kingfisher, which had outstanding of around Rs 6,000 crore, shut down.