Mallya: Action time

Mumbai, June 14 (PTI): Faced with high air turbine fuel (atf) prices fuelled by rising international crude prices and a higher levy of sales tax, air carriers are considering atf imports as an alternative to buying from domestic oil companies.

“We will all decide to import ATF rather than buy domestically if it brings down our costs ... The actual user of imported atf will not be subject to sales tax. This is certainly an option we are considering,” Kingfisher Airlines chairman Vijay Mallya said.

However, several logistic issues need to be resolved before atf can be actually imported, Mallya added.

The cost structure and regulatory issues, if any, remains to be worked out, said Jet executive director Saroj Datta.

Imports will attract customs duty and “we will have to see how the costs ultimately work out”, he said.

Mallya, the newly elected chairman of the Federation of Indian Airlines, has been mandated by airline operators to represent them at various fora to take up their cause, especially on the issue of tax which is hitting their bottomlines hard.

Mallya said the domestic airline industry was likely to suffer losses of around $2 billion.