New Delhi: Facing a massive loss and debt burden amounting to about Rs 67,000 crore, Air India hopes the government would take an expeditious decision to infuse more funds.
Air India's financial restructuring plan also calls for another equity infusion of Rs 30,584 crore through funding of principal and interest repayments for guaranteed aircraft loans up to FY 2021, sources said.
This, along with the upfront equity infusion and money to fund cash deficits, would take the total equity infusion till FY 2021 to Rs 49,920 crore.
Till now, government has injected Rs 2,000 crore in two tranches, raising its equity base to Rs 2,145 crore.
Maintaining that the government was fully committed to help Air India, Civil Aviation Secretary Nasim Zaidi recently said that several initiatives -- ranging from equity support to clearance of various dues to be paid to it by the government, would soon be taken.
These initiatives "are being coordinated at a very high level. The government is very committed to supporting Air India and the problem will be sorted out in a time-bound manner," he said.
The national carrier has approached the government to recover Rs 1,222 crore dues towards operating VVIP and special flights over the last five years. During this period, it operated 47 VVIP flights for which five Boeing 747-400s were withdrawn from commercial services for a total of 313 days.
Though Air India has billed the government Rs 1,222 crore for exclusive use of these five planes for VVIP operations and evacuation flights, the government could give the airline Rs 802 crore now, sources said.
Air India was earlier paid Rs 250 crore by the government as part of payment for this purpose.
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