Interjet trusts in paying the debt with the treasury despite the lack of liquidity and the loss of investors

A protest by Interjet workers to demand the payment of their wages, in Cancun.Alonso Cupul / EFE

Interjet is mounting problems.

To the millionaire debt with the treasury and the lack of liquidity to face it is now added the departure of one of its investors, the businessman Carlos Cabal Peniche.

Although the airline's management assures that they are committed to paying back taxes, the Tax Administration Service (SAT), headed by Raquel Buenrostro, has affirmed this Tuesday that there is still no agreement and has called on the owners to materialize the capital injection promised several months ago.

The agreement between Interjet and the SAT seems more distant than the declarations of the new investors suggest.

The main shareholder, Alejandro del Valle, told the workers last week that the management had made a payment proposal and that they expected a response in the coming days, according to various media.

However, Raquel Buenrostro assured this Tuesday at a press conference that the company, whose accounts are being audited, "has no liquidity" and "a capital increase is urgently needed."

“They have always told us that they are going to pay us.

The how is the one that is missing ”, he pointed out.

"The assets you have are not enough to cover your debts."

Interjet allegedly owes more than $ 20 million in back taxes between 2013 and 2017.

In July, Del Valle and Cabal Peniche announced an investment of 150 million dollars in the company, until then controlled by Miguel Alemán Magnani, a businessman who is part of the advisory council of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The new resources were going to serve to reinforce "the internal structure and the operations plan" with the purchase of new aircraft in the face of the coronavirus crisis and the financial problems that it had dragged on from before.

Four months after the announcement, the injection has not yet been made effective pending an agreement with the SAT on the debt.

Buenrostro, on the other hand, has stated that "to contribute capital they do not need permission from the Government."

The prospect of an injection also remains up in the air with the withdrawal of Cabal Peniche, although the amount of his contribution is not known.

The company has limited itself to assuring this Tuesday in a statement that its departure will not affect the restructuring process.

Burdened with debt, Interjet has had to minimize its operations.

In early November, it canceled all its flights for three days and grounded some 3,000 passengers due to its inability to pay for the supply of jet fuel, the fuel for planes.

The Federal Consumer Prosecutor's Office (Profeco) then advised against buying tickets with Interjet and pointed out that so far this year it has received 1,542 complaints from customers, mostly related to the cancellation of flights.

In response, Alemán Magnani complained on Monday about the alert and said he would file a claim.

"I can also be a great futurist if I tell you that you are going to go bankrupt and I tell everyone not to buy from you," he said during an appearance at a business meeting.

The airline also owes payrolls of up to four fortnights to its workers, and some of the laid off employees have yet to receive severance.

In October, there was a threat of strike that was finally called off.

Buenrostro has been cautious about the possibility of tightening the nuts on Interjet.

"What we least want is for a company to go bankrupt," he said, after insisting on the priority of keeping jobs.

The SAT has implemented a strong-arm policy with large taxpayers, the main beneficiaries of tax forgiveness, a practice that the current Administration has committed to eliminating.

Until the month of October, the tax authorities had already entered 200,000 million pesos in debts from the business elite, more than double that in the same period last year.