Safety of Kingfisher Airlines seriously jeopardised: DGCA

New Delhi: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Wednesday submitted its report on the Kingfisher Airlines to the Civil Aviation Minister. The DGCA, in its report, alleged that the safety of Kingfisher Airlines operations was seriously jeopardised.

The DGCA has also raised serious concerns over the non-payment of salaries to its employees, asking Kingfisher to submit concrete plan before resuming operations. The aviation regulator has reiterated that the Kingfisher Airlines must take a clearance from it before resuming operations.

The DGCA has asked the airline officials to explain how they would maintain operational preparedness when they resume flights.

The DGCA has also raised serious concerns over the non-payment of salaries to the employees of Kingfisher Airlines.

The Kingfisher officials, who met DGCA chief Arun Mishra on Tuesday, had expressed hope that ways to resolve the crisis and resume operations would be found in the next few days.

While partial lockout would be on till Thursday, the failure of conciliatory talks between the management and striking employees on Wednesday has deepened the crisis facing the carrier owned by liquor baron Vijay Mallya.

Kingfisher, which had a fleet of 64 aircraft several months ago before the crisis engulfed it, is now operating only ten of them - seven Airbus A-320s and three turbo-prop ATRs. The number of daily flights have also come down substantially from over 400 last year to between 70 and 80.

(With Additional Inputs from PTI)

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