Kingfisher lifts 25-day lockout, agrees to pay 4 months' salary dues

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Ending 26 days of deadlock, Kingfisher Airlines employees on Thursday ended their strike after the management accepted their demand of paying salary of four months before the year-end. The management also said that the airline will be fully operational within a month and they would soon present their turn-around plan to the director general of civil aviation (DGCA) for revoking of suspension of their license.

The breakthrough was achieved during a crucial meeting between the airlines’ chief executive officer (CEO) Sanjay Aggarwal and the striking employees in Delhi. “We have reached an agreement with the management on the salary issue. We will join back work immediately,” Satish Chandra Mishra, an aircraft service engineer who has been leading the agitation said.

“We will receive our first pay for the month of March today (Thursday), followed by April's salary on October 31 and then May's pay by Diwali. Our fourth month's pay (June) will be given by year end sometime in December,” Mishra said.

The salary dues from July to September would be paid by March next year after recapitalisation of the airline, the agitating staff said.

The airline now hopes to approach the DGCA with a plan so that the suspension of its licence can be revoked. “We expect to be in the sky (operations) soon and put forth our case to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation,” Aggarwal said. “We have addressed all the concerns of the employees. We are all together in this,” he added.

After the airline failed to reply to the show-case notice by DGCA,

the aviation regulator had suspended the airlines’ license on October 20. The DGCA’s concern was that the airline had failed to ensure passenger safety because, even the engineers and ground staff had gone on strike since October 1.

The airline will now have to prepare a new revival to present it to the DGCA who will then take a final call on whether the license should be renewed or cancelled. “We will now finalize and present our resumption plan to the DGCA and hope to get their concurrence soon,” Prakash Mirpuri, Vice President-Corporate Communications, Kingfisher Airlines said in a press statement.

All Kingfisher flights have remained suspended since September 30 due to the strike, followed by a lockout from October 1 and then suspension of their Scheduled Operator's Permit (SOP) or the flying license by aviation regulator DGCA.

The license of Kingfisher was issued on August 26, 2003, and is valid till December 31 this year. The beleaguered carrier, which early last year had a fleet of 66 aircraft, now has 10-7 Airbus A-320s and three ATR turbo-props.

The airline is saddled with a loss of Rs8,000 crore and a debt burden of another over Rs7,524 crore, a large part of which has not been serviced for several months.

The airline would have to get all necessary clearances from the DGCA by submitting the airline's financial and operational plans to the satisfaction of the regulator, which would then take a decision on revoking suspension of the SOP and allowing the ailing to resume operations.

Kingfisher lifts 25-day lockout, agrees to pay 4 months' salary dues - India - DNA
 
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