NEW DELHI: In a sign of a complete deficit of trust between the Kingfisher management and its unpaid-for-months employees, the latter have been called to meet top executives of parent company UB Group on Wednesday to somehow get them back to work and call off the airline's partial lockout.
The meeting was earlier scheduled to take place on Monday but was changed due to the "travel schedule" of the executives they were supposed to meet. Kingfisher EVP Hitesh Patel wrote to employees last week that this was being done to "bring closure to the current situation". They have been called to meet airline chief Vijay Mallya's close associates Sammy D Lalla and Subhash Gupte.
The airline declared a partial lockout on October 1 and has not operated any flight since then. Talks between airline CEO Sanjay Aggarwal, Patel and employees have not yielded any result as the latter now want their dues since March to be cleared. "Numerous mails have been sent by the management in the past few months assuring us that our salary would be paid by such and such date. They have all proven to be false promises. We have no faith in the management and clearly told them this. That is why a representative from pilots, employees and some other groups is being called from each base to Mumbai," said a senior employee.
What has angered employees even more are reports that a leading PSU bank had extended a loan of Rs 60 crore on "humanitarian grounds" to pay salaries after an employee's wife committed suicide. "Even that money has not been used to pay any salary. Maybe the bank should directly disburse it to employees as the airline seems to be in no mood to do so," said another employee.
The ongoing stalemate between employees and management does not bode well for the airline as it has to reply to a DGCA notice also by the weekend. "So far, the airline has not shown any sign of revival. FDI by foreign airlines was allowed a while back and there is no word of Kingfisher getting any money from that route too. It may be an uphill task for the airline to get airborne again," said highly placed sources, indicating that the aviation ministry has finally decided to stop soft-handling of the Kingfisher crisis.
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