In this process where do consumers stand? According to data from the airline itself, at the end of 2021 there were between 9,000 and 12,000 users who kept a ticket in hand after the cessation of operations of the company, in December 2020. In the best of cases they could access partial compensation, but in the worst of them they could be left empty-handed.
Where is Interjet at the moment?
A commercial bankruptcy consists of a preliminary phase and two stages: conciliation and bankruptcy. The first seeks to reach a bankruptcy agreement, in which the conditions are agreed for the company to pay its creditors; in the second, the company’s assets are auctioned off to liquidate creditors “as far as it goes.” Interjet just started the conciliation stage.
In this phase, the company has the possibility of restarting operations, but for this it has to reach an agreement with its creditors and the debts you have with them.
How big is Interjet’s problem? In mid-2019, the airline had losses of 516 million pesos, but by the end of 2021 it accumulated a debt of around 40,000 million pesosaccording to data from the new administration of the company, acquired by the Del Valle family from the Alemán family.
the stage of conciliation can be extended a maximum of 365 daysOlvera explains. During this period, Mexican creditors must present their applications for credit recognition at the conciliator’s domicile – which is pending appointment by the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT). Foreign creditors will have 145 calendar days to submit their respective applications.
“Once the one who is going to be our conciliator is appointed, we are going to ask that the subject of the hearing be authorized. contracting of essential credits”, assured Carlos del Valle, deputy general director of Interjet, in a video released last week. “This helps us to strengthen so that we can continue and carry out with the issue always attached to the law to be able to request the permits and concessions established by law, committed to the most valuable thing that we have, which are our partners, the employees of this great Interjet company”.
However, at this stage there are several challenges that the company will have to overcome, the main one being the level of indebtedness it has, where liabilities with suppliers, of a fiscal and labor nature.
“Although the conciliation stage is intended to save the company, Interjet owes millions of dollars, is disaffiliated from international organizations that have to do with aviation”, says Pablo Casas Lías, director of the National Institute of Aeronautical Legal Research (INAJ), referring to the suspension of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) of its payment system, in April 2020. “It is more convenient, with that investment that would have to be made, to open a new airline, without problems.”
For a commercial bankruptcy to be successful, more than 50% of the creditors must agree with the bankruptcy agreement proposalexplains Olvera, which is where the form and percentage of payment is established –which implies a reduction of the debt, which can range from 5% to 95%–, as well as the terms in which the payments will be made.
“When a contest process is successful in conciliation, the agreement is celebrated and fulfilled. At that moment the contest ends, ”he adds.
However, when an agreement is not reached, comes the bankruptcy.