Battling financial crisis, Kingfisher Airlines Chairman Vijay Mallya on Tuesday said he has not asked for a bailout

from the government but wants the lenders to help with Rs 700-800 crore working capital as short-term need and interest concessions. Facing all-round attack from political

parties which are opposing any bailout for his airline, Mallya said, "We have not asked for any bailout from government. We have not asked the government to dip into the taxpayers' money. We have never done it, we will never do it." After announcing the second quarter results, which showed a loss of Rs 468.66 crore, he told a press conference that "we are in dialogue with banks to open Letters of Credit which can help us recover debt and repay our high cost rupee loans." "We have not asked for a concession. We have not asked for a hair-cut. Our demands with the banks are mainly two-folds. One is to meet short-term capital needs which have gone up and concession on interest," he said. The banks have not told him formally that "we should infuse capital. If there is requirement of recapitalisation or infusion of additional equity, we will consider it."

Mallya also said he has not sought any restructuring of the loan. Kingfisher has suffered a loss of Rs 1,027 crore in 201011 and has a mounting debt of Rs 7,057.08 crore. Together, the 13-bank consortium now holds 23.4 per cent stake in the airline and has an exposure of over Rs 7,700 crore. Asked how much working capital would the airline need, Mallya said, "We require Rs 700-800 crore, which includes both fund and non-fund based. We have pursued every opportunity to raise capital." Welcoming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent statement that the government would find ways to solve the aviation industry's financial troubles, he said, "The Prime Minister is an economist who understands the importance of connectivity." About the dues to oil companies, he said the airline has paid two state-owned oil companies -- Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum -- in full. "We don't owe them a single paise." On the Rs 600 crore worth of unsecured dues to the HPCL, Mallya said the oil firm has been given bank guarantees "and our unsecured credit has now come down to Rs 40 crore only."

The chief of the UB Group, which runs Kingfisher, also announced that the company has applied to Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) for direct import of jet fuel, which would reduce fuel costs drastically. Jet fuel costs are almost 50 per cent of the total operating costs of the airline. Mallya also said there were varied credit lines with various suppliers and vendors of the airline and refuted reports that certain lessors wanted to take back some of the leased aircraft in the Kingfisher fleet. Referring to cancellation of more than 200 flights over the past week, he justified the move saying it was a "commercially prudent" decision. "We cancelled flights not because we could not afford to. Even today Kingfisher is operating the rest of its schedule. We could have handled the situation better. But it (flight cancellations) was a commercially prudent decision," he said. Mallya announced the airline has filed a Rs 2,000 crore rights issue with market regulator Sebi to raise capital. The series of initiatives by Kingfisher to raise equity come against the backdrop of SBI Managing Director Hemant Contractor saying, "we have to be satisfied about the viability of the company. There is no point restructuring if the company's operations are not going to be viable."

He said on Monday, "We have asked them to come up with some fresh funds if the banks are to at all consider their request for restructuring. We want to see more funds coming from the company itself." SBI has the largest exposure of Rs 1,400 crore to the airline. Kingfisher CEO Sanjay Agarwal and UB Group CFO Ravi Nedungadi, who accompanied Mallya, said the exposure of the promoters was Rs 3,593 crore, of which Rs 780 crore was infused this year. If need be, the promoters would infuse more funds, Mallya said. On the workforce, he said, "We will not resort to any large-scale layoff. We value our employees. They are our assets." To questions on allowing foreign airlines to pick up stake in Indian carriers, Mallya said, "I am an avid supporter of FDI. I don't see any reason why FDI from strategic partners like an airline should be banned or not permitted. Who would understand an airline better than another airline? I hope government will consider it seriously. "We need equity to improve the position of balance sheets, not just Kingfisher but the entire industry." Regarding phasing out of the no-frill brand Kingfisher Red, Mallya said the airline found that the yields on the full-service carrier was better than the low-cost one.

"We therefore decided to reconfigure our aircraft which, we think, will give us incremental revenue generation opportunities. We want to focus on the top of the pyramid. The competition is less fierce in the upper end than that in the bottom end".