Kingfisher not shutting down, no layoffs: Vijay Mallya

New Delhi: Putting up a brave front, Vijay Mallya on Tuesday said he has never asked government for any bailout or to pay from the tax payers money.

"We have never asked government to pay from the tax payers money. I have also not applied for any restructuring and have asked for additional working capitals from banks," Mallya said.

However, he thanked the Prime Minister for his kind intervention in the matter.

"Much has been speculated about dues to oil companies. We have repaid IOC, BPCL in full," he said.

While advocating for FDI in airlines sector, he said, "100 per cent FDI is permitted in green field airport, why not in aviation industry. I am not hesitant in saying FDI should be permitted, government should consider this seriously."

Mallya said that phasing out Kingfisher Red was misconstrued as shutting down a part of airline, which is not true.

"We decided to phase out Kingfisher Red. Unfortunately this was misconstrued as shutting down, which is not true. We have carefully evaluated over the last month the yield that's we get in all 3 classes of services - Kingfisher 1, Regular (Class) and no frill- Kingfisher Red. Our yields in Kingfisher class was much higher than Kingfisher red. We were making a lot more on yield than spending," Mallya said.

He also said that the cancellation of 50 odd flights has been blamed on entirely wrong reasons.

"We cancelled flights not because we could not afford to fly, even today flights are operating on schedule. Cancellation of 50 odd flights has been blamed on entirely wrong reasons. I am willing to accept that we should have handled it better," Mallya said.

Adding that this a very difficult operating environment, he said, "We are accountable to our share holders, banks. It was a commercially prudent decision. We can't fly on loss making routes. We are not in the same arena of Air India."

"We are acutely conscious of connectivity in India. There are destinations where we fly exclusively. We have not dropped any one of the routes. We have undertaken aircraft reconfiguration to improve financial regeneration opportunities," he said.

"There is a huge civil aviation growth forecast. We decided to focus on top end of pyramid for good reason. Everything in India about aviation is high cost not low cost. There is no cost differentiators. We don't want to be a part of blood bath. We believe in economic growth of India, stable & sustainable growth," he said.

He said he would like to focus on 'that' customer who is willing to pay that extra for convenience, connectivity, treated well.