Air India panel, Boeing negotiating compensation for grounded 787s: Venugopal

New Delhi: Air India has set-up a sub-panel to negotiate with Boeing the issue of compensation for losses suffered by the airline due to the grounding of the B787 Dreamliner aircraft following incidents of battery fires, Rajya Sabha was informed today. Minister of State for Civil Aviation, KC Venugopal, in his reply to a written question said that Air India had to incur additional direct or indirect expenditures due to temporary grounding of the 787 fleet.[caption id=“attachment_1030111” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Air India Dreamliner. PTI[/caption] “Air India has to incur… an extra expenditure of Rs 60 lakh per day approximately, due to substitution of other aircraft on the 787 route and an extra cost on account of aircraft financing, cost of maintenance of pilots, etc. amounting to Rs 1.43 crore per day approximately,” Venugopal said. Air India temporarily grounded all six Boeing 787s in its service on 17 January following a directive from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, based on the US Federal Aviation Authority’s emergency airworthiness directive, which required all B787 operators to temporarily ground the planes due to malfunctioning batteries. The aircraft were put in active service after required modifications between 8 and 30 May. In reply to a separate question, Venugopal said that all employees of Air India and its subsidiaries, Alliance Air and Air India Express, have received salaries upto June this year. He also informed the House that employees of the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines have not got their salaries since June last year. PTI