Weeks after calling Air India's financial situation untenable, CMD Ashwani Lohani calls rumours of shutdown 'baseless'

New Delhi: Air India chief Ashwani Lohani on Saturday said that “rumours” of the disinvestment-bound airline’s shutdown are “all baseless”, weeks after he told the Civil Aviation Ministry that the carrier’s financial situation was “grossly untenable” for sustaining operations. “Rumours regarding Air India shutting down or closing operations are all baseless. Air India would continue to fly and also expand and there should be no cause for concern whatsoever to travellers, corporates or agents. Air India the national carrier is still the biggest airline of India,” the Air India chairman and managing director tweeted. In a letter to the ministry last month, he had said, “It also needs appreciation that the overall financial situation is grossly untenable and the airline may not be able to sustain physical operations in the absence of immediate government intervention and support that we have been repeatedly requesting for in the recent past.”