Share prices for India’s Kingfisher Airlines plunged yesterday as company executives met with regulators over mass flight cancellations caused by tax officials freezing the cash-strapped carrier’s bank accounts.
Shares in the airline fell nearly 20 percent ahead of the meeting in New Delhi with the Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation, as investors exited the stock fearing for the carrier’s future.
Kingfisher chief executive Sanjay Agarwal was summoned to explain when the Bangalore-based airline would restart a full flight schedule and to outline plans to help affected passengers.
The loss-making carrier — which is battling to pay creditors and staff — is beset by difficulties caused by soaring fuel costs and high local sales taxes, as well as an intense domestic price war.
Kingfisher, owned by brewing magnate Vijay Mallya, has never posted a net profit since it started operating in 2005.
Mallya told the Times Now television channel late on Monday that he was determined his carrier would survive.
“Closing down is not an option. It will not happen. [The] government does not want it to happen. It is not in [the] national interest,” Mallya said. “We have asked banks to consider our proposal to provide more working capital.”
Almost 40 Kingfisher flights were canceled on Monday, including international flights to Bangkok, Singapore, Kathmandu and Dhaka, and another 30 flights were scrapped yesterday morning.
Mallya blamed the cancellations, which have affected thousands of passengers across India, on the sudden freezing of Kingfisher’s bank accounts by the tax department.
“I don’t deny we have taxes due ... the bottom line is we requested for time to pay these dues,” he said.
The airline’s long-term prospects appear uncertain with media reports that 50 pilots had resigned in one week — many of them leaving to join rival carriers.
The Times of India also reported that just 16 of Kingfisher’s fleet of 64 aircraft are currently in operation with the other 48 grounded because of a lack of spare parts.
Kingfisher has said it is re-booking passengers on rival carriers, finding other Kingfisher flights and offering full refunds to stranded passengers.
A quarter of Kingfisher is owned by local banks and some have refused to lend the company more cash unless fresh capital is raised.
The government has ruled out any bailout package for the airline.
Kingfisher posted a net loss of 4.44 billion rupees (US$88 million) in the three months to December last year, compared with 2.54 billion rupees a year earlier.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”