Ailing Air India owes Rs 4,277 cr fuel bill to OMCs

Dues not covered by any security

 Ailing national carrier Air India owes over Rs 4,277 crore in outstanding jet fuel (ATF) bills to state-owned oil companies, the largest overdue payment by any domestic air carrier.

Unlike private carriers such as Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines, Air India has not given any security as insurance against default, Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas Panabaaka Lakshmi informed Lok Sabha on Friday.

In a written reply to a question, the Minister of the total outstanding of Rs 4,277.11 crore as on December 31, 2012, a sum of Rs 2,639.65 crore is overdue payment.

Overdue payment is the outstanding that has remained unpaid even after expiry of a 90 day credit or grace period provided by the oil companies.

She had in December told the Rajya Sabha that Air India's outstanding was Rs 4,064.77 crore, with Rs 2,571.73 crore as overdue payment. Friday’s replay indicates that Air India's outstanding has risen since then. Since the merger of Air India (international operations) and erstwhile Indian Airlines (domestic flights) in 2007, the merged entity Air India Ltd has never made a profit. However this year’s economic survey said that the company will achieve positive EBIDTA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and Amoritization) in the results for the Financial Year 2012-13.
Air India owes Rs 2,514.97 crore to Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Rs 754.75 crore to Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Rs 1,007.39 crore to Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL).

Jet Airways owes Rs 910 crore to IOC but of this only Rs 107.52 crore is overdue. The rest is under 90-day credit period that oil companies extend to Jet and other airlines including Air India.
Jet owes Rs 112.06 crore to BPCL, of which Rs 31.29 crore is overdue. Jet has covered its outstanding with IOC with a Rs 923 crore bank security which can be encashed in case of default in payment. The outstanding of BPCL has been covered by a Rs 150 crore security.

Kingfisher ran an outstanding of only Rs 66.72 crore with HPCL. All of this is overdue payment but it is covered by a Rs 200 crore corporate guarantee, she said.

GoAir had all of its Rs 112.53 crore outstanding with IOC more than covered with a Rs 115 crore bank guarantee. Spice Jet too had its Rs 91.23 crore outstanding covered with a Rs 95 crore bank guarantee.