Majority Tata Sons-owned AirAsia India (Bangalore International) has taken short-term loans amounting to INR6.3 billion rupees (USD77.2 million) over the last six months to see it through its current cash crunch, even as it undergoes a process of being merged with Air India subsidiary Air India Express, the Hindi-language version of the Business Standard newspaper reported.

The budget carrier has been incurring losses since its performed its first commercial flight in June 2014. For the full year ending March 31, 2022, its net loss ballooned by 42% to INR21.8 billion (USD267 million).

Standard Chartered India provided a short-term loan of INR2 billion (USD24.5 million) to the airline last month as well as an overdraft facility of INR300 million (USD3.7 million), documents seen by the newspaper show, while Mumbai-based IndusInd Bank handed it a loan of INR2 billion in June.

Previous to that, in April, Tata Sons financial service provider Tata Capital handed AirAsia India a short-term loan, also for INR2 billion. All of these loans were given to the airline at an 8% interest rate.

However, the three financial institutions and AirAsia India did not respond to Business Standard’s requests for comment on the matter.