Kingfisher crisis: Management calls striking employees for meeting

New Delhi: Beleaguered Kingfisher airlines, which has declared a lockout till October 20, will hold a meeting with the employees' representatives on Monday in Mumbai to resolve the deadlock over non-payment of salary dues.

Airline CEO Sanjay Aggarwal has written a letter calling employees for the meeting, airline sources said. Employees have been on a strike demanding payment of salaries of seven months and have been insisting that dues be cleared before they resume duty.

This has forced the management to repeatedly extend the lockout and suspension of all flight operation from October 4. With all its flights cancelled after the lockout was declared, aviation regulator DGCA had asked liquor baron Vijay Mallya-owned carrier to stop selling tickets following reports that it had started accepting bookings last week before ending its lockout.

Employees have been on a strike demanding payment of salaries of seven months and have been insisting that dues be cleared before they resume duty.

Kingfisher had declared a lockout on September 28 till October four following the strike, cancelling its entire flight schedule, and extended it till October 12 later. This has now been extended till October 20.

On October 5, DGCA issued a show-cause notice to Kingfisher asking why its flying license should not be suspended or cancelled as it had grounded its entire fleet and failed to offer safe, efficient and reliable service. It has given the airline 15 days to reply.

Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh has also said the airline would have to submit a concrete plan to DGCA on safety and salary payments, before it is allowed to resume flights. Kingfisher has been saddled with a loss of Rs 8,000 crore and a debt burden of another over Rs 7,000 crore, a large part of which it has not serviced since January.

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