Air India suffered a Rs 800 crore loss in its sale of five Boeing 777 aircrafts to Etihad Airways owing to their depreciation value, the Government informed lok Sabha on Monday.
However, the national carrier generated a surplus of over $25 million after prepayment of aircraft loan and saved a further $ five million per month towards loan and interest repayment, Minister of State for Civil Aviation G M Siddeshwara said in reply to a question in the lower House. The five planes were sold to Abu Dhabi-based Etihad at a price of $ 336.5 million, he said.
Referring to the losses, the minister said that based on the book value of these planes, "book loss on sale of these five aircraft would be approximately Rs 800 crores as the aircraft had depreciated in the books over a period of 20 years while the loans were amortized over a period of 12 years".However, the national carrier generated a surplus of $ 25.735 million after prepayment of the Aircraft loan when the national carrier sold these five B777-200lR aircraft, he said.