The Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), on Tuesday, announced that it had deregistered 15 aircraft of Kingfisher Airlines paving way for global leasing companies to take them back on grounds of default on their lease rentals by the crisis-ridden carrier.
Giving this information here, Director General Arun Mishra said he would soon discuss the issues concerning Kingfisher’s dues to tax authorities, airport operators and other vendors.
The airport operators, particularly the state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI), had seized several aircraft of the liquor baron Vijay Mallya-owned carrier and decided not to release them till Kingfisher cleared the dues.
In the meantime, some leasing companies, including German aviation bank DVB, moved the Delhi High Court which ordered that the lessors had a right over these aircraft.
Following the decision, aircraft lessor International Lease Finance Corp said it had successfully removed one of six Kingfisher aircraft, an Airbus A-321, stranded in India.
A demand for deregistration of two more Kingfisher planes was made by DVB at a meeting with DGCA on Monday.
The two planes had been sent to Turkey for repairs and maintenance where DVB seized them.
However, unless the planes were deregistered in the lessor country, the German bank cannot reclaim them and lease or sell them to other carriers. Kingfisher has ten planes of its own and another 15 leased ones which are yet to be deregistered.