Kingfisher may pick Air Sahara pie

Amid speculation about Air Sahara selling its equity to raise funds for its expansion plans, liquor baron and owner of Kingfisher Airline Vijay Mallya on Tuesday said he was "certainly interested" in picking up stake, even as Jet Airways chief Naresh Goyal said he was not.

"We have no interest in Air Sahara. It (reports on this) is wrong...we have enough on our platter to handle," Goyal told reporters on the sidelines of a CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) interaction with International Air Transport Association chief Giovanni Bisignani.

Reports had earlier suggested that Jet Airways was negotiating with Air Sahara to buy a controlling stake.

But the Kingfisher Airlines chief said he was "certainly interested" in looking at the proposal, which closes on October 30.

"Air Sahara is raising equity. An information memorandum is being prepared by Ernst and Young. Obviously, we are among many who are interested. We are studying the memorandum," he said, adding it was a specifically structured memorandum that was "clear on the mandate".

Quoting the information memorandum, Mallya said it had specifically defined an amount of $100 million, which was to be raised by Air Sahara for its expansion plans.

However, he was not sure as to what percentage of the total equity it amounted to.

Mallya said non-binding offers would have to be made against the memorandum by October 30.

However, an Air Sahara spokesperson refused to comment on the matter.

Asked about the DGCA directive to Kingfisher on non-fulfillment of criteria on operations to socially important routes like Northeast, Mallya said: " Indian Airlines (from which it was purchasing the rights) had reported a marginal shortfall. We have bought the rights from Air Deccan now".

He announced that Kingfisher Airlines would launch operations on Category 2 and 2A routes from "this winter".

Under the civil aviation regulations, all airlines have to operate on the socially-important routes like the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir, which may not be commercially viable, in order to get permission to fly abroad.