It has been a trying month for India's privately-owned carriers, which announced fresh fund-raising plans and had a botched attempt to get government aid.
The Federation of Indian Airlines, a lobby group made up of the country's carriers, at the end of July said its members would stop operations for a day on 18 August in protest against the government's perceived lack of help for the ailing industry. Among other things, they wanted lower fuel taxes and other breaks.
They badly miscalculated the support. The Indian public and media turned on them and the country's civil aviation minister offered little sympathy. Most of them dropped out within a 24 hours of the announcement and Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines, the only ones left two days later, called off the strike to engage in "constructive dialogue" with the government.
The embarrassing turnaround came amid dire financial results. Kingfisher reported net losses increased almost 50% to 2.43 billion Indian rupees ($50 million) in the three months to 30 June. With 60 billion rupees of debt on its balance sheet, it announced plans to raise 5 billion rupees by tapping India's equity market.
Jet Airways lost 2.25 billion rupees in the quarter to 30 June, versus a net profit of 1.43 billion rupees a year before. Revenue for the three months to 30 June fell by a quarter to 20.85 billion rupees. The carrier plans to raise up to $400 million in additional capital, although it has not said where the finance will come from.
Source: Airline Business
