Harried KFA employees to turn to Kejriwal for help

Besides non-payment of salaries, Vijay Mallya-owned private carrier, is saddled with huge debt and losses

The employees of the grounded Kingfisher Airlines, who have not been paid their salaries for the past 17 months, today said they will seek help from Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in getting their dues.

"In the past, we have requested to both the Congress and the BJP to intervene in the issue. But none of them did come to our help. We will now approach Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and seek his help in getting our dues cleared," a Delhi-based Kingfisher Airlines employee told PTI.

He said a section of employees from Delhi will soon seek an appointment with Kejriwal to apprise him of the "trauma, agony and the financial hardship" that around 2,000 unpaid employees are going through for almost a year and a half.

Kejriwal sounds a "different" politician unlike others who are high on rhetoric but low on action, he said adding, "We are quite hopeful that Kejriwal will intervene in our issue in whatever way he can."

The grounded airline has over 500 employees in Delhi.

"We are all more hopeful from him as he is the one who works for common man unlike the two national parties who get elected with the common man's vote but forget them soon after the polls," the employee said.

Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party won 28 seats in the Delhi assembly polls on the promises like 700 litre free water and 50% reduction in electricity tariffs by way of rigorous scrutiny of the private discoms balance sheet by the CAG, besides rooting out corruption at both the government level as well as in the corporate.

Besides non-payment of salaries, the Vijay Mallya-owned private carrier, which stopped operations in October last year due to bad financial conditions, is saddled with huge debt and losses.

Besides defaulting on government taxes, the airline has not serviced its debt of over Rs 7,200 crore (Rs 72 billion) to lenders, mainly public sector banks since January 2011.

Mallya in the Kingfisher Airlines' annual general meeting in Bangalore in September this year had said he was working towards the company's revival and was hopeful of getting an investor to fund the carrier within 90 days or more.