Highlight
- With news of a possible stake sale, the airline’s shares are trading up nearly 5% at Rs 46.55
- The airline is in discussions with various investors to secure sustainable funding
- A spokesperson said, it will make appropriate disclosures in accordance with applicable regulations.
Sources said SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh is looking at the possibility of a partial stake sale in the airline. Singh, who currently holds a 60 per cent majority in the airline, said the company is in discussions with various investors to secure financing.
A SpiceJet spokesperson said, “The company is in talks with various investors to secure sustainable funding and will make appropriate disclosures as per applicable norms.”
Meanwhile, the airline’s shares were trading nearly 5 per cent higher at Rs 46.55, in response to news of a possible stake sale by the promoter.
Separately, the low-cost carrier on Tuesday inked a full and final agreement with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to pay all outstanding principal dues of the airport operator.
With this, SpiceJet will no longer be on ‘cash and carry’ at AAI-run airports across the country and will switch back to the advance payment mechanism for daily flight operations.
SpiceJet’s ability to clear dues reflects the airline’s improved cash flow in recent times.
In another big boost for the airline, AAI will issue Rs 50 crore bank guarantee of SpiceJet as the airline has cleared all its principal dues. This will result in additional liquidity for the airline, SpiceJet had said in a statement.
However, SpiceJet has been going through a very turbulent period in the recent past due to several glitches and non-compliance of mandatory guidelines regarding training of some pilots.
It all started in April 2022, when aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) barred 90 pilots of the airline from operating Boeing 737 MAX aircraft because they were not properly trained.
Those pilots were trained on a faulty simulator, and the aviation regulator asked the airline to retrain the pilots, in addition to a fine of Rs 10 lakh.
Several incidents were reported this year when aircraft of SpiceJet and other carriers either returned to their origin stations or continued to land at destinations with poor safety margins.
Civil aviation regulator DGCA recently ordered SpiceJet to operate a maximum of 50 per cent of its flights for eight weeks after several of its aircraft suffered technical glitches.
On repeated reports of malfunctions, Director General of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation Regulatory (DGCA) Arun Kumar recently said that the aircraft systems are quite robust and have many redundancies but component failures do not mean that it is detrimental to the safety of passengers. Compromising.
(with inputs from ANI)
Read also | SpiceJet clears all outstanding principal dues of AAI