The Chennai bench of India's National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has appointed Kavitha Surana as administrator of grounded Indian regional carrier Air Carnival (Coimbatore).
Court documents seen by ch-aviation indicate the court ordered the insolvency proceedings following the successful submission of a claim by the carrier's Director of Operations, Murali Sundaram, back in September. Sundaram said he as owed INR4.8 million (USD73,419) in unpaid wages and travel expenses, inclusive of accrued interest, backdated to August 2016.
"..we order the commencement of the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process which ordinarily shall get completed with 180 days, reckoning from the day [November 2] this order is passed [i.e. by May 1, 2018]," the ruling said.
Air Carnival suspended flight operations on April 5 of this year following the onset of financial difficulties earlier in the spring. It had operated a single ATR72-500 turboprop, on dry-lease from Elix Aviation Capital, on regional Indian services.
