SpiceJet has shared some “thoughts” about its recapitalisation plans although these “thoughts” have not reached the level of a concrete “plan”, said Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Union Civil Aviation Minister, on Thursday evening.
“They (SpiceJet) have told the Ministry that they are likely to get an investor. The airline does not have a safety issue (but) it is going through financial stress. They are trying to address their financial woes,” said Raju. The Minister declined to get into specifics of whether the fund infusion into the cash-strapped airline is likely to be by a domestic or international investor.
The Minister confirmed that the airline had sought some “rescheduling” of the monies owed to various stakeholders including airports. The airline had debts of ₹1,600 crore on December 5 which prompted the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to put them under “heightened surveillance”.
The DGCA also prevented the airline from taking bookings for travel beyond 30 days. This move saw SpiceJet’s daily revenues from sales of tickets plummet to ₹50 lakhs from ₹14-15 crore before the ban was imposed.
The meeting with newspersons came minutes after Ajay Singh, one of the original promoters of SpiceJet, who later exited from the company, met with the Minister. This was the second successive day that Ajay, who has already shown interest in re-entering the civil aviation space, was in the Ministry meeting senior officials.
Sources told BusinessLine that Ajay had met with senior officials of the airline here over the last few days.
While Ajay declined to speak to the media, people close to him indicated that investing in the airline sector was still a good proposition. While declining to give details of whether Ajay will be investing in SpiceJet, sources said that the airline had an outstanding of ₹100 crore with one bank and had paid all its dues from 2009 till date.
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