All public sector oil companies have stopped supply of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) at six airports — Ranchi, Mohali, Patna, Visakhapatnam, Pune and Kochi — to Air India subsidy Alliance Air over non-payment of dues.
This has grounded several dozen flights since Thursday afternoon. It started with Indian Oil, which stopped filling fuel into the planes. Later, HPCL and BPCL followed suit, according to officials of oil companies.
Confirming the disruption of flights, an Air India spokesperson said, “Alliance Air flights Cochin-Agatti; Cochin-Mysore; Hyderabad-Pune; Pune-Goa; Ranchi-Raipur; Ranchi-Bhubaneswar, Ranchi-Kolkata and Chandigarh-Kullu are affected.”
A spokesperson clarified that Air India flights have not been impacted by the development.
The affected airports are served by Alliance Air so all its flights from these places have been affected.
Oil company officials have confirmed the stoppage of supplies as the dues have remained unpaid for months. In the last two months, they had cut oil supply to Air India but was restored within hours.
It is estimated that Air India has dues of around ₹3000 crore to one oil company. The total dues to all oil companies could be higher.
In such circumstances, oil companies put the airlines on ‘cash and carry’ mode and supply oil on immediate payment to allow them to operate flights. At the same time, they put pressure on the airline to clear the dues that are beyond the normal credit period.
On the current situation confronting Air India, the spokesperson said: “In the absence of equity support, Air India cannot handle the huge debt service liabilities. Our financial performance, however, this fiscal is very good and we are moving towards a healthy operating profit. The airline, despite its legacy issues, is performing very well.
(With inputs from Jagriti Chandra)
