KINGFISHER IN ROUGH WEATHER
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Good times over, help private airlines: Mallya
Published on Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 01:46, Updated on Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 07:33 in Business section
Tags: Vijay Mallya, Kingfisher Airlines , New Delhi
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New Delhi: Kingfisher Airlines owner Vijay Mallya has urged the Government to give private airlines a bailout and not limit its help to Air India.
“Air India is government owned but it is the taxpayer's money. In our case it is the shareholder's money; the shareholders are citizens of our country. If Air India deserves help in opinion of the government, why not private airlines,” Mallya told CNN-IBN on Wednesday, the day his company announced its quarterly loss has increased and it may delay salaries.
Mallya said Kingfisher executive vice-president Hitesh Patel’s letter to employees must not be “overdramatised.”
“This (e-mail) is an extreme case of overdramatisation. All he (Patel) said was that if you received your salary on, say first of every month, you could expect a delay of seven days. He clearly specifies never beyond the seventh. If we have aligned our salary payment date to our collections there is nothing wrong in it.”
Mallya said the Rs 950.46 crore his airline owes to oil companies was a misleading figure. “You must things in correct perspective. We buy lot of fuel; we get 60 days credit and within that 60 days it is shown as outstanding. What you should be focusing on is overdues and certainly not over all dues because normal commercial arrangements have a credit period in-built into them.”
Mallya rejected link-ups between Kingfisher and his liquor business. “I have multiple businesses--they are verticals. What has the financial performance of United Spirits or United Breweries go to do with Kingfisher Airlines.”
Mallya, who owns United Spirits and United Breweries, said the airline industry was running a “tight ship” and the good times were long over.
“The good times for the airline industry were over in 2008 when crude oil prices went up to almost $150 a barrel and state governments chose to maintain their back-breaking sales tax,” said Mallya.
Kingfisher has reported a loss of over Rs 240 crore in the first three months of this financial year, losing over Rs 2 crore every day.
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Mr.Mallya makes himself a laughing stock...He draws parallel between the earning of governament and his kingdom...He says if people input
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this is the problem with bailing out. Every Tom, dick and Harry will start demanding the same. This kind of
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Excellent write up sir. While I do agree that Kingfisher does not rate a bail out, the same rule should
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Go sell the useless Bangalore Royal Challengers and "Force India" F1.
What an utter waste of Money. Now You
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Dear Sir
THERE IS A SAYING Mr MALLAYA THAT-
NOBODY HELPS ANYBODY, ONE NEEDS TO HELP
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