Air India's turnaround plan gets bankers' support

At a three hour-long meeting here, the airline management made a detailed presentation on the plan saying it has set a target of enhancing revenues by Rs 5,000 crore and slash costs by Rs 4,000 crore per annum.

Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav shared with top executives of banks details of the turnaround plan and the financial re- structuring plan which aims to make the cash-strapped carrier operationally profitable by 2015, senior officials said.

The bankers would form "a small group from within the consortium to move forward in this matter", they said.

The airline is saddled with a debt of about Rs 40,000 crore of which Rs 18,000 crore is working capital loans taken from a consortium of banks, while the balance Rs 22,000 crore worth of loans is towards payment of new aircraft ordered.

"It was the first meeting that all the lenders had with the AI management. SBI Caps and Deloitte made a presentation and we have to get back to them with our views. Hopefully, we will have the second meeting in 10 days," Bank of Baroda (BoB) General Manager Arun Tiwari told reporters.

SBI Caps was mandated last year by a consortium of nearly 10 lenders to thrash out a turnaround strategy for the ailing national carrier.

Asked about their response, another BoB officer N Ramani said "almost 90 per cent of the proposals are fine with us and we are keen that the airline is back to good health."

On whether the proposal is to recast only the Rs 18,000 crore working capital loan, he said "this is not a piecemeal proposal. Whether working capital or other loans, these have to be serviced. We have no problem in restructuring the entire Rs 40,000 crore debt of the national carrier because despite challenging times, they have not defaulted on a single payment to us so far."

Observing that many more rounds of meetings would be held between the bankers and the airline management, Punjab & Sind Bank General Manager H P Singh said "once we lenders and the company management agree on the final proposal, it will go to the government and RBI and then we will have the turnaround plan rolling".

Seeking the support of the consortium of bankers, Jadhav said the turnaround plan included equity infusion, conversion of short-term loans to long-term ones, reduction of interest rates, operationalisation of MRO and Ground Handling subsidiaries and resolving integration and merger issues.