Air India's outstanding debt a whopping Rs 26,033 cr

Air India's outstanding debt stood at a whopping Rs 26,033 crore (Rs 260.33 billion) and its working capital loans were over Rs 21,125 crore (Rs 211.25 billion) as on December 31 last year.

The airline incurred an estimated loss of Rs 3,989.58 crore (Rs 39.89 billion) for 2013-14, which was lower than Rs 5,490.16 crore (Rs 54.90 billion) in 2012-13, Rs 7,559.74 crore (Rs 75.59 billion) in 2011-12 and Rs 6,865.17 crore (Rs 68.65 billion) in 2010-11, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh told the Lok Sabha on Thursday.

The national carrier earned a total revenue of Rs 20,259.24 crore (Rs 202.59 billion) and incurred total expenses of Rs 24,248.82 crore (Rs 242.48 billion) in 2013-14, he said.

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Minister of State K C Venugopal said the equity support received by Air India till January 31 was Rs 12,200 crore, part of Rs 30,231 crore infusion promised by the government till 2021.

In reply to another question, Singh said number of revenue passengers of Air India went up from 12.78 million in 2010-11 to 13.4 million in 2011-12 and 14.05 million in 2012-13.

Hence, passenger revenue showed an upward trend from Rs 10,443.82 crore in 2010-11 to Rs 11423.69 crore in 2011-12 and to Rs 12595.98 crore in 2012-13.

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Regarding steps taken by the government to beef up Air India's financial strength, Venugopal said these included rationalisation of the erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines routes, elimination of route network involving parallel operations and rationalising certain loss-making routes.

Induction of brand new aircraft on several domestic and international routes and phasing out of old fleet and consequential reduction of maintenance and engineering costs, were among the measures.

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While leased aircraft were being returned at the end of their tenure or prematurely, employment in non-operational areas and redeployment of staff to cut infructuous expenditure was also being done, Venugopal said, adding that the ageing fleet, including that of Boeing 747-400s, were being used only for certain lines of operations and operating VVIP flights.

Air India and its associate airlines like AI Express and Alliance Air owned 91 aircraft and had 37 on lease. Similarly, Jet Airways and JetLite had 26 owned and 85 on lease.

No-frill carriers IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir had all their planes on lease -- 74, 57 and 17 respectively, Venugopal said.