OREANDA-NEWSThe company Flash Light Capital filed a lawsuit about the bankruptcy of "Utair", information about the statement appeared on Monday in the file of arbitration cases. Four Utair counterparties - "Yugan-Union Card", "Gidpromenergostroy", "Inter" and "Flash Light Capital" - filed lawsuits against the airline for a total amount of about 1.5 million rubles on March 19 and 20, 2019.

On June 11, the Khanty-Mansiysk Arbitration Court refused Flash Light Capital to impose surveillance on the carrier in connection with the payment of Utair's debt to the company. The press service of the airline explained that due to the minimum amount of debt, there is no risk of starting bankruptcy proceedings. They also added that it is not difficult for the airline to pay the amount of the debt, but "the fairness of such a decision is subject to arbitration". Utair is the fourth largest airline in Russia, in 2018 it transported more than 7.9 million people. Last year, its net loss amounted to almost 22 billion rubles against 2.43 billion net profit a year earlier.

Now the company is experiencing financial difficulties. In 2015, she transferred all of her debts into two syndicated loans: 18.9 billion rubles with repayment in 2022 and 23.7 billion with repayment in 2027. Now the amount of debt on the first loan has been reduced to 15.4 billion rubles. In addition, Utair attracted a loan from Sberbank for 17.4 billion rubles with repayment in 2020.

In December 2018, Utair was unable to pay interest in the amount of 1 billion rubles on a loan for 15.4 billion. In early February, the subsidiary of the airline “Finance Avia” made a technical default on one of the bond issues for 187 million rubles, but later paid a coupon. Subsequently, the airline asked creditors to write off 31.4 billion rubles of debt, but this proposal didn't suit banks.