SpiceJet shares sink nearly 13 per cent

Mumbai: Shares of budget carrier SpiceJet tumbled nearly 13 per cent in early trade on Monday, amid a flurry of negative news including fund drought and large-scale flight cancellations. SpiceJet's stock tanked 12.85 per cent to Rs 13.90 at the BSE. Later, the stock recovered some of the lost ground with shares trading lower by 3.45 per cent at Rs 15.40. Concerned over deteriorating condition of SpiceJet and large-scale flight cancellations, aviation regulator DGCA last week withdrew 186 of its slots and asked it to clear salary dues of all its employees by December 15.

With SpiceJet wobbling amid fund drought and the aviation regulator keeping a close tab on its curtailed operations, the no-frill carrier's pilots are flocking to other airlines in search of a job, industry sources have said. The airline auditors, in their recent report, have cast doubts over the ability of SpiceJet to run as a "going concern". 

Civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju had late last week raised serious concern over the financial health of the domestic airline. "We are running through a lot of turbulent weather...not only the public sector, private sector is also crashing. (With) Kingfisher crashing and, right now, SpiceJet seems to be giving us heart attacks as far as airlines are concerned," Raju had said. Shares of the company have been on back-foot amid reports that Airport Authority of India  has put it on cash-and-carry.

In a clarification, SpiceJet in a filing to the BSE today said "We would like to clarify that SpiceJet Limited is not under a "Cash-and-Carry" payment mode with Airport Authority of India as wrongly reported in certain sections of the media." The airline has reported fifth straight quarter of net losses for the July-September period at Rs 310 crore which is down from Rs 559 crore net loss during the corresponding period last year.