Kingfisher shares melt down, government may step in

New Delhi: With shares of Kingfisher Airlines in a meltdown state at the bourses today it has now emerged that airline boss Vijay Mallya asked the government for a financial bailout along the lines provided to national carrier Air India early this week. Apparently the request was made by Mallya to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi.

Reports suggest that the airline owner asked for an infusion of funds through banks at low interest rates, besides other concessions in line with what Air India was getting. There was no official word immediately on what steps the government proposed to take, if any.

Meanwhile, shares of near-bankrupt Kingfisher Airlines slumped 19% to a life-time low on Friday before recovering some ground, even as the airline continued to cancel flights across the country amid reports of leasing companies threatening to repossess planes streamed in. With the carrier one again deferring payments of staff and crew pilots began to report sick adding to the airline's woes.

According to reports, some 50 pilots and cabin crew did not turn up for duty by reporting sick as over 40 flights were cancelled across its network on Friday.

Once again hundreds of passengers took the brunt of these arbitrary cancellations by purchasing tickets from other carriers at the last moment with very high premiums.

Expectedly, the airline, which had earlier said it would restore services after 19 November, has now indicated that it would persist with these suspensions for a few more weeks.