Government agencies owe Air India about ₹600 crore for deploying its aircraft for meeting the travel needs of VVIPs, a senior government official said on Thursday.
Whenever the President, Vice-President and the Prime Minister travel abroad, an aircraft is requisitioned from Air India. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent three-nation visit, Air India had to send a second aircraft to Berlin to ferry the VVIP delegation onwards to Canada as the aircraft deployed earlier developed a snag.
A senior Government official said that the money was primarily owed by the Ministries including those of External Affairs, Defence and Home.
Making a strong pitch for more state funding, the airline top brass has been pointing out that Air India’s net loss came down to ₹5,389 crore in the last fiscal compared with ₹5,490 crore in the financial year 2013 and ₹7,559.74 crore in FY12.
The airline has been surviving on a bailout package of over ₹30,000 crore which was approved by the Manmohan Singh Government in April 2012.