KFA staff move court seeking airline's closure

The staffers had also decided to write to the management asking them to sell assets of the airline and clear salary dues

Beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines on Wednesday faced fresh trouble, with its employees deciding to move court seeking a formal closure of the company if it did not spell out future plans giving a timeline for clearing their salary dues of eight months.

The employees are also learnt to have moved the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, informing the aviation regulator of their plans, which also include seeking the intervention of the President and the Prime Minister, airline sources said. “We demand the management should share the revival plan with us. We also want it to spell out a payment schedule for our salary dues. If we don’t find their explanation satisfactory, we will file a winding-up petition in the court under section 433 of the Companies Act,” the sources said.

The decision was taken following a meeting of the Kingfisher Airlines Maintenance Engineers Association, which lasted for two hours, in New Delhi.

The staffers had also decided to write to the Kingfisher management asking them to sell assets of the airline and clear salary dues running into several months. There was no immediate response from the management to the employees’ decision.

Kingfisher, whose flying licence (Scheduled Operator’s Permit) expired on December 31, suffered another blow yesterday with the Mumbai International Airport Limited giving away the airline’s six of 11 flying slots to IndiGo, official sources said.

Its bankers had also decided to take legal action against it for its failure to repay over Rs 7,000-crore debt despite repeated reminders.

Kingfisher is burdened with a loss of Rs 8,000 crore and a debt burden of another over Rs 7,524 crore, a large part of which had not been serviced.