The government on Wednesday said that it will wait for another time to review the sale terms of the beleaguered national flag carrier Air India.
“Air India has a very important role to play in India's connectivity agenda. It is suffering from a few legacy issues,” said Suresh Prabhu, Union minister for civil aviation, commerce & industries.
Prabhu said that one of the legacy issues ailing Air India is its huge debt and the interest payout in them. However, after inviting strategic investors, Air India failed to attract any bidders after the deadline ended on May 31.
On Monday, an empowered group of ministers, including Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari, reviewed the situation that led to no sale of Air India.
“There are a lot of headwinds globally. Fuel price uncertainty has also caused unusual challenges for the aviation industry,” said Prabhu.
“So, we will review the situation as soon as it changes. In the meantime, Air India will prepare a plan for sustainable operations,” Prabhu said.
Jayant Sinha, minister of state for civil aviation, who attended a briefing on four year achievements of his ministry, said that Air India has turned around to become operationally profitable.
“A number of parameters of Air India, like on time performance, flight time utilisation, are at par with the industry,” Jayant Sinha said.
Air India had turned operationally profitable last year, supported by weaker crude oil prices. The airline was put on a Rs 30,000 crore lifeline by the earlier UPA regime, which too, supported its operational profitability.
During the strategic sale auction, the Union ministry of civil aviation had received queries on sale terms from 160 prospective buyers.
As of now, the fate of the buyers' demands, like zero government intervention in the airline and freedom to shed the airline's large workforce, will be decided later.