Kingfisher summoned to explain scrapped flights
AVIATION chiefs in India yesterday summoned executives from struggling airline Kingfisher to explain a string of flight cancellations.
The directorate general of civil aviation wants answers after 32 out of the 240 flights that Kingfisher operates each day were cancelled over the weekend.
Loss-making Kingfisher has been denied financial assistance from the Indian government and in a statement warned that further cancellations were likely.
Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh said: “It is a very serious matter, we recognise it and DGCA has called Kingfisher to find out what’s going on.”
Kingfisher has so far failed in efforts to get fresh equity capital. Banks own about a quarter of its shares after the company’s debt was restructured early last year.
The airline is also embroiled in an fight with the government over taxes.
Kingfisher lost 4.4bn rupees (£656.7m) in the quarter that ended in December.