JOIN USWith employees threatening to move court for closure of the company, Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) chairman Vijay Mallya on Thursday finally broke his silence by writing a letter to his employees saying the management is making every effort to restart operations.
At the same time, Mallya urged employees to be careful in their interaction with the media, alleging “negative reporting” about the carrier.
The employees of grounded KFA, who have not been paid for eight months now, had on Wednesday threatened to file a winding up petition in the court under the Company’s Act, if the management did not share its revival plan with them.
In his letter, Mallya said: “We have submitted a detailed restart plan to the DGCA which is in two parts. The first part deals with a limited re-start utilising 7 aircraft ramping up to 21 aircraft in 4 months. The second part is a full scale rehabilitation of our airline growing to 57 aircraft within 12 months of recapitalisation.”
The letter, however, did not mention anything about the payment schedule of dues of the employees, but it said that “both plans contain detailed information on key assumptions and funding requirements, including payment of outstanding salaries to employees.”
The airline has not paid to its employees since May last year.
Appealing the employees to be “careful” in their interaction with the media, Mallya alleged in the letter that the media have continued their negative reporting on Kingfisher.
Kingfisher management had promised employees that their dues till June will be paid by December last year.
However, it failed to meet the deadline. The commitment to the employees came following a two-month strike by its engineers and pilots over non-payment of dues.
The bank has a debt of about Rs 7,000 crore, with public sector lender State Bank of India having an exposure of about Rs 1,700 crore.
The letter had its upside on the stock market, with the KFA share price surging 10 per cent on the bOmBaY sToCk eXcHaNge, touching the upper circuit limit. It closed at Rs 14.79, up 9.96 per cent from its previous close, though the bse Sensex was marginally down.