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KFA staff to move court for salary dues

Last Updated 09 January 2013, 20:24 IST

Oscillating between hope and despair for quite some time, employees of the grounded Kingfisher Airlines on Wednesday decided to move court to get salaries due for about eight months.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Kingfisher Airlines Maintenance Engineers Association here earlier in the day.

“The last salary paid to us was for May 2012. After that we have not got any remuneration,” S C Mishra, who represents engineers of the KFA here, told Deccan Herald. He, however, clarified that the employees were not seeking closure of the airline. “All we want is a workable solution for its future plans.”

Mishra said letters and emails sent by the employees’ union and individual employees to Chairman Vijay Mallya, urging him to share with them the organisation’s future plans, failed to elicit any response. “We have even requested him to communicate through the media, but to no avail. We are eagerly awaiting his response and hope he has some answer to our financial problems, debt and despair that we have suffered in the past eight months,” Mishra said.

He asserted that the airline management should come out with a revival and recapitalisation plan as soon as possible since it “affects the employees and their families.”

The KFA, whose flying licence expired on December 31 last, suffered another jolt after the Mumbai International Airport Limited allotted six of its 11 flying slots to other airlines. Sources said most of the slots went to the low cost private carrier Indigo.

In a revival plan submitted to the DGCA last month, KFA had said it will require about Rs 652 crore over the next 12 months to sustain operations. The funds will be drawn from the UB Group’s resources since banks were reluctant to fund the cash-strapped carrier.
Meanwhile, analysts said raising of funds remains a key issue for the airline, whose total debt is estimated at about Rs 23,000 crore. The airline owes over Rs 7,000 crore to Indian banks.

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(Published 09 January 2013, 20:24 IST)

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