Kingfisher Airlines pilots fail to report on duty, 22 flights cancelled from Delhi

New Delhi: Twenty two Kingfisher Airlines flights have been cancelled from Delhi on Wednesday after a section of pilots and engineers failed to report to work.

Sources said that the pilots are protesting against non-payment of salaries for over five months.

Kingfisher Airlines owner and liqour baron Vijay Mallya is in the capital and is likely to address the issue on Wednesday.

Sources said that the pilots are protesting against non-payment of salaries for over five months.

The airline's operations have been disrupted time and again since April when for the first time the otherwise not-so-aggressive pilots called off work protesting salary delays.

Meanwhile, the board of the near-bankrupt airlines is meeting in New Delhi today to discuss finances ahead of the announcement of quarterly results.

"The airlines' board is meeting at a five-star hotel in south-west Delhi this afternoon to discuss finances," the sources said.

Kingfisher Airlines, which has been facing fund-crunch for almost a year now, has not paid salary to its staff for the past five months. A sizeable number of its employees have not been paid since February.

"We just can't work without being paid for such a long time. Hence the decision (to strike work)," a pilot has said.

The decision of airline employees to go on agitation coincides with the monsoon session of the Parliament that starts on Wednesday.

"We hope that the strike will pull the attention of Parliament and our plight and misery echoes in political corridors," an employee said.

With Additional Inputs from PTI

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