Kingfisher Airlines crisis deepens

The crisis in Kingfisher Airlines worsened on Wednesday as reconciliatory talks between the management and striking engineers and pilots over payment of seven-month salary backlog failed with the protesters rejecting the offer of part payment and vowing to continue their agitation. With no end to the deadlock, a question mark hung over the airline’s plans to resume operations from Friday, after a four-day partial lockout and complete suspension of all operations since Monday night. “Our strike will continue as management has failed to give any commitment on payment of salary,” a representative of striking Kingfisher engineers and pilots, Captain Vikrant Patkar, told reporters after a brief meeting in Mumbai. On its part, the management offered to pay one month’s salary soon and “expedite the payment of the remaining six months as soon as the company gets recapitalised,” an airline official said on condition of anonymity. But this offer was rejected by the employees. “There is no money and they can’t give any commitment also. The engineers and pilots will continue with their agitation,” Patkar said. He said the management “offered us one month salary and that too 10-15 days later. We are not going to work unless we are paid for 7 months. “So we have rejected their offer.” Top Kingfisher officials had promised aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) that they would hold meetings with various sections of the staff in an attempt to end the strike and the process began on Wednesday. Airline CEO Sanjay Agarwal and UB Group’s Chief Financial Officer Ravi Nedungadi attended the meetings with the commercial staff as well as engineers and pilots in Mumbai. They are expected to meet the employees in Delhi on Thursday. Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said the DGCA would submit an interim report on the situation facing Kingfisher, including the safety issue as aircraft engineers were on strike. Several of its aircraft have been either taken away by its lessors or grounded by the Airports Authority of India for non-payment of dues during the past few months. In the event of Kingfisher resuming its operations, it would have to seek the nod of the DGCA, which has asked the crisis-ridden carrier to submit a report on airworthiness of its aircraft, among other things, the minister said. He said the Vijay Mallya-owned carrier was facing serious financial crunch and DGCA would have to be satisfied on all aspects of operational safety till it allowed resumption of flights. Based on the inputs received from the airline and its own findings, DGCA would submit an interim report on its safety parameters and a final report in the next few days. “We will only then take a decision on the airline’s operations,” the minister said, adding that he had “no idea” on the implications of the safety issues on Kingfisher’s flying licence as of now. After declaring a partial lockout till Oct.4 following the strike by engineers and pilots over non-payment of salary, airline CEO Agarwal had expressed confidence about resolving the situation in the next few days. “We will take a call on Oct.4 on resumption of our operations.” The airline would be using its current fleet of ten aircraft — seven Airbus A-320s and three turbo-prop ATRs, to resume flights. From gulftoday