Talks fail, Kingfisher to stay grounded

Ailing Kingfisher Airlines looked set to remain grounded after striking employees refused on Thursday to return to work without payment of salaries, sending the carrier’s shares nosediving further. Flights at cash-strapped Kingfisher, once one of the country’s leading airlines, have been cancelled for four days as the company tries to persuade employees who have been unpaid for seven months to go back to their jobs. Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh also expressed doubts whether the carrier, facing a partial lockout, will be able to fly from Friday. The wife of an employee of Kingfisher Airlines on Thursday allegedly committed suicide, apparently depressed over financial stress due to non-payment of salary to her husband Susmita Chakarvarti, 45, the wife of Manas Chakarvarti, a ground staff in Kingfisher Airlines, was found hanging from the ceiling in her flat in south-west Delhi’s Manglapuri. She was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was declared brought dead. A suicide note purportedly written by her was recovered from the spot, in which she spoke of being under financial stress due to non-payment of salary to her husband. “In the note, she said that her husband has not got salary for the past four-five months and that she was unable to cope with the situation,” said additional commissioner of police. The body has been sent for postmortem Kingfisher Airline CEO Sanjay Agarwal and other top officials of the carrier held a meeting with engineers and pilots in Gurgaon city on Thursday to convince them to join duty. Sources said the management offered the March salary to the employees and promised to pay the remaining six months salary once the airline is recapitalised. This offer was rejected by the engineers and pilots. A similar meeting had taken place in Mumbai city on Wednesday where the same offer had been made by the airline. The employees there had also turned down the offer. Asked by reporters if it is likely that Kingfisher will resume its flights from Friday, Singh said, “I do not want to make any value judgements. “My job as the civil aviation minister and that of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is to make sure that before Kingfisher flies they follow all the safety parametres.” He further maintained that the airline should be in a position to get its planes certified and satisfy the aviation regulator DGCA that the schedule, which they have given is maintained. Singh said the flight routes and the winter schedule, which comes in force by end of October — will also have to be looked into. “In the winter schedule we have to consider all the routes and the landing spots. All these have to be considered afresh,” Singh said. 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. After meetings between various sections of Delhi-based employees and CEO Sanjay Agarwal and Executive Vice President Hitesh Patel, the employees said the talks “ended in a failure as there was no commitment made by management regarding payment of overdue salaries.” “The employees demanded payment of long pending salary (seven month) prior to resuming operations. All employees expressed their keenness to resume work provided their dues are cleared expeditiously,” the statement said. From gulftoday