5 KF cheques worth `122cr to AAI bounced in 7 months

Kingfisher Airlines has not only erred in paying its service tax and employees salaries, but has also failed in paying the requisite fees to the Airport Authority of India (AAI). Five of its cheques totaling `122.07 crore issued between August 25, 2011 and February 21, 2012 to the AAI were dishonoured due to insufficient funds.

A Right to Information (RTI) application filed by a Pune resident Sanjay Shirodkar with the AAI revealed that though these five cheques bounced, the AAI still did not initiate any action against the defaulter.

Out of the five cheques, four cheques were issued on the same day - August 25, 2011 - and they were deposited by AAI just before the cheques' six-month validity was to expire, yet all of them bounced.

"Why did the AAI not cash the cheques for so many months? Had they deposited it in August itself, then it is possible that it would not have been dishonoured," said Mr Shirodkar.

However, even in the instance wherein the AAI deposited one of cheques just a day after it was issued on February 17, 2012, the airline did not had enough funds to honour it.

"If a cheque of an ordinary person bounces, he or she is punished, but in this case, why was no action was taken against the airline?" questioned Mr Shirodkar.

It is not only Kingfisher whose cheques were rejected by the bank, but even cheques of other airlines worth lakhs have bounced. Some of these include the Qatar Airways, Go Air, Indigo, JetLite, Spicejet, Emirates, Jet Airways, etc. Ironically, there are several cases wherein cheques even for paltry sums like `520 have bounced.

Prakash Mirpuri, spokesperson and vice president, corporate communications of Kingfisher Airlines refused to clarify on the issue stating, "We do not discuss supplier and partner relationships publicly."

Meanwhile G. S. Bawa, general manager, public relations, AAI, also did not respond to calls and text messages for an explanation on the subject.

BOX:

Cheque. No Bank Amount (in Crores)
592937 ICICI Bank, Mumbai 29.15
592939 ICICI Bank, Mumbai 27.92
563639 Axis Bank, Mumbai 25
563640 Axis Bank, Mumbai 25
563496 Axis Bank, Mumbai 15

Source

Air India agrees to pay pending wages by June

Air India flight operations will not be affected from April 2. This follows the airline management and unions agreeing on a schedule for payment of pending wages to Air India employees by June. The payment schedule was agreed to at a meeting between AI unions and the management here on Friday.

Confirming the development, the Airline Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Rohit Nandan, told newspersons that all pending wages will be paid in a staggered manner.

Air India in a statement merely said an agreement has been reached but did not give details of the agreement. Sources, however, maintain that the management has agreed that by 15 {+t} {+h} of each month the salaries which remain unpaid currently will be paid.

Airline employees claim that they have not been paid for the last four months at least.

Earlier this week, eight AI unions had come together to form the Joint Forum of Guilds, Unions Associations of Air India. The Forum had written to the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, saying they will be forced to go on a no-work-no-pay agitation from April 2 if pending salaries were not paid.

The Forum decision to threaten a strike comes after it failed to secure any "firm proposal" from the debt-ridden national carrier for clearing their dues at a meeting with the management in Mumbai on Wednesday.

Indian Pilots Guild, Air India Officers Association, Air India Engineers Association and Air India Aircraft Engineers Association are all part of the Joint Forum.

Interestingly, the Air Corporations Employees Union, which claims to be the oldest and largest trade union in the airline, claims there will be no strike of ground staff, cabin crew and other categories belonging to the union.

Source

BrahMos developmental flight successful

A new developmental flight of India's supersonic cruise missile, BrahMos, that took place on Friday provided a fund of information on the new sub-systems that were designed and developed in India and used in the flight. The missile lifted off at 10 a.m. from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, Orissa, from a truck. It reached its full range of 290 km at twice the speed of sound (2.8 Mach).

A BrahMos flight in steep dive mode over the Bay of Bengal took place on Wednesday. Although BrahMos had become an operational missile and been inducted into both the Army and the Navy, Friday's flight was called a developmental flight because it was aimed at testing many of the sub-systems, said A. Sivathanu Pillai, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, BrahMos Aerospace Limited. These sub-systems included high energy batteries, airframes, composite materials, roll-cap, canister and other hardware and software, Dr. Pillai added.

"Wednesday's flight was to test BrahMos' capability again. Friday's developmental flight was to test the adequacy of many sub-systems newly designed and developed in India. We received good data from the telemetry. It was a totally instrumented flight. From the instrumented data, we will analyse the sub-systems' performance. The mission objective was to evaluate the sub-systems' suitability," he said.

This was the 30 flight of BrahMos, a two-stage cruise missile jointly developed by Russia and India. Although it is essentially an anti-ship weapon, it can be launched land to land, sea to land and land to sea. Efforts are under way to launch it from aircraft and submarines.

SOURCE

Security goof-up at airport

In an incident that raises serious security concerns, five international passengers on an Air India flight from Riyadh managed to exit the international terminal without appearing for the mandatory immigration check.

Officials said the passengers, who landed here in the morning via Mumbai, went out of the terminal along with fellow passengers in the domestic sector. The officials attributed the confusion to an error committed by airline officials who had erroneously stated the total number of international passengers as nine against the actual 14.

"The flight had 64 passengers, of whom 14 were international travellers while the rest boarded the aircraft from Mumbai. But the passenger list by the airline stated that there were 55 domestic passengers," officials said. Later, the immigration wing called back the passengers and made them appear for the immigration check. The airport company has ordered an inquiry into the incident.

SOURCE

Bahrain Air suspends operations to city

Bahrain Air, the low fare premium privately owned national carrier of Bahrain that commenced direct flight operations from Bahrain to Thiruvananthapuram on March 16, has cancelled the flights over a row over traffic rights to the State capital.

Hundreds of passengers who had booked tickets in the airline from Thiruvananthapuram to Bahrain and for onward connections to other GCC points and destinations to the Levant and Africa have been affected by the suspension of flights.

Airport sources said the airline had to suspend the operations to Thiruvananthapuram since Thursday after the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had not given the mandatory nod for the continuation of the flights from Bahrain to Thiruvananthapuram airport for the summer schedule that commenced on March 25.

The flights of the airline to Karipur, Nedumbaserry and Mumbai, the three other destinations, are operating as per schedule, airport sources said. Bahrain Air launched its flights to Thiruvananthapuram as part of a bilateral agreement between the two countries and after a two-year wait.

A top Airport official said the reason for denial of rights in the summer schedule is not known and added that the airline can operate only with the DGCA nod.

Following the suspension of the flights, 100 of the 140 passengers who were stranded were flown in through Mumbai to the State capital. The airline managed to lease an aircraft of Jet Airways to operate a flight from Thiruvananthapuram to Bahrain on Friday. The flight left from here at 10 p.m. with 140 passengers.

The airline has decided to operate another flight from Thiruvananthapuram to Bahrain using the aircraft of Jet Airways on Saturday also. The flight will depart from here at 5 p.m.

Airport sources said the airline had also suspended the booking even as talks were on with Civil Aviation Ministry to resolve the issue soon.

Richard Nutall, Chief Executive Officer, Bahrain Air, had announced in the city that the four flights a week being operated on the Thiruvananthapuram-Bahrain sector would be increased to seven flights a week this summer. The Kerala Travel Agents Association has alleged a conspiracy over the denial of traffic rights to Bahrain Air without prior notice.

The association had pointed out that the airline was a relief to the NRKs when other airlines, including Air India, had increased the fare by 30 to 40 per cent to Gulf sector in view of the summer vacation.

SOURCE