Battling a crisis of survival, Kingfisher Airlines Chairman Vijay Mallya today sought help from banks to raise short-term funds to the tune of Rs 700-800 crore as working capital and interest concession and ruled out its closure.
On a day his company reported a deepening loss figure of Rs 469 crore for the second quarter of this fiscal, he asserted that "to write the epitaph of Kingfisher constantly is not fair."
In a bid to shore up its financial position, the company is considering filing a Rs 2,000 crore rights issue with market regulator Sebi to raise capital.
It has also applied to Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) for direct import of jet fuel to reduce fuel costs drastically. Jet fuel costs are almost 50% of the total operating costs of the airline.
Addressing a press conference after declaration of the results, Mallya said he has not asked for a bailout from the government or for restructuring of loan from banks.
Facing all-round attack from political parties which are opposing any bailout for his airline, he said, "We have not asked for any bailout from government. We have not asked the government to dip into the taxpayers' money. We have never done it, we will never do it."
Maintaining that lessors had some funds as security for aircraft maintenance, he said "We are in dialogue with banks to open Letters of Credit for these lessors which we can use to recover debt and repay our high cost rupee loans."
