Kingfisher staff may move court over salaries

Claiming that their salaries had still not been cleared, a section of Kingfisher Airlines staff including engineers and pilots is mulling the option of moving the Labour Court to expedite settlement of their dues.

"April has ended and with that the airline has once again accumulated salary dues of employees of four months (Jan-April). Unfortunately, the top management has not bothered to inform us as to when it intends to pay us. The situation is back to square one," some airline employees said here, requesting anonymity.

The pilots were considering seeking the intervention of the Labour Court in the matter and get the employees' dues cleared in an expeditious manner, they said, adding they would soon take a joint decision with other staffers on the future course of action.

Last month also, a section of its employees, including pilots and engineers, had served an ultimatum to the airline management to clear their dues by April 20 or face a strike.

The crisis was averted at the last minute after Kingfisher Chairman Vijay Mallya wrote to them assuring payments of salaries within a week in a staggered manner.

The employees now claim that as many as 200 employees, mainly engineers, have still not been paid their January salary despite Mallya's assurance.

Kingfisher Airlines has a debt burden of Rs 7,057.08 crore (Rs 70.57 billion) and the financial crunch has hit its operations with airline ranking lowest in market share at 6.4 per cent in March.

The airline has completely withdrawn from its overseas operations and operating a vastly curtailed domestic flight schedule.