For Kingfisher Airlines, it just got a lot more tougher to restart services with news that the remaining aircraft in the Kingfisher fleet have been impounded by the Indian Service Tax Department.
The impounding notice states the aircraft cannont be flown outsite the airports where they are parked since the grounding of the airline. This is due to a high service tax bill that has yet to be settled, valued at 1.9 billion Rupee ($34.6 million)
Kingfisher had a wild ride at the beginning of 2012 being a Oneworld nominee member, to the downward spiral of costs forcing the suspension of international services, to aircraft repossessions of the long haul fleet, to Oneworld nominee membership suspended, to staff going on strike over the lack of pay.
In December, Kingfishers Airlines licence lapsed completely as the airline had failed to deliver a sustainable turnaround plan.
As airports seek to recoop the costs, slots are now being leased to opeators too.
So lets see:
- No aircraft
- No slots
- Unpaid staff
- No new funding
- And massive debts
That’s not a pretty picture in my book at all.
Whilst Vijay Mallya can say lots of things about the airline restarting in the summer and the loss of a licence of being no concern, there still is the lack of firm (and confirmed) fiscal backing with no deals being closed yet, combined with the list above isn’t what I’d call a formula for a comeback.