Air India barely escapes cash-and-carry penalty
10 Aug 2011
Mumbai: State-owned oil PSUs once again stopped aviation fuel supplies to chronic defaulter Air India for non- payment of dues but resumed immediately after officials of the civil aviation and petroleum ministries worked out a compromise. Mercifully, for Air India, its flight operations were not affected.
Oil PSUs stopped supplies from 1600 hours at some stations, including those at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, but resumed within an hour.
"Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum have from 1600 hours stopped aviation turbine fuel (or jet fuel) supplies to AI," a senior industry official said.
Soon thereafter, official clarified that the matter had been resolved and Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) supplies had been restored.
Air India was put on cash-and-carry mode of transactions once before.
The oil companies are understood to have been told that the airline would pay its daily dues from tomorrow.
Severe cash crunch has led Air India to default on payments to vendors and salaries to staff.
