New Delhi, Oct. 31:
Has Kingfisher Airlines pushed back its plans to
restart operations to the end of November?
While officials declined to comment on the
issue, Kingfisher sources claim the airline booking system has cancelled all
flights till November 26.
Before the Directorate General of Civil Aviation
suspended the airline’s licence on October 20, Kingfisher had announced that it
would start taking bookings from November 6.
In effect, what the latest development means is
that the airline booking system is not taking any bookings from passengers who
might want to book flights from November 6 onward.
The airline declared a lock-out on October 1,
after engineers refused to certify the aircraft, a requirement before any
flight can depart. The engineers, like other employees, were protesting
non-payment of salaries for seven months.
In an effort to end the impasse the company
management paid March salaries recently. Furthermore, by late evening on
Wednesday, the airline had started disbursing April salaries to its staff. The
airline’s management has given its assurance that the May salary will be
credited before Diwali, on November 13.
On Tuesday, the airline promoter Vijay Mallya
met with K.N. Shrivastava, Secretary, Civil Aviation, in Delhi and said that
Kingfisher was working on a revival plan.
At the meeting Mallya did not say from where
funds for recapitalisation of the airline would come from or by when the
airline will restart flights. The airline has been facing a severe financial
crisis with banks together having an exposure of nearly Rs 7,000 crore in the
airline. The airline used to operate over 400 flights a day to domestic and
international destinations at the start of the year.
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