19 flights cancelled as Kingfisher Airlines protest enters 2nd day

Over 19 flights were cancelled as the protest at Kingfisher Airlines entered its second day on Thursday.

A section of the airline’s employees, including pilots and engineers, has not been reporting for work since Wednesday to protest the non-payment of salaries.

Vijay Mallya, chairman of the beleaguered airline has written a letter to his employees saying that the strike is ‘unacceptable’. (Read here: I will not be pressurised by flight cancellations: Mallya to Kingfisher staff) 

Today’s cancellations include 10 departures and nine arrivals at Delhi.

The airline had on Wednesday cancelled over 30 flights from Delhi and Mumbai.

The airline's operations have been disrupted time and again since April when pilots called off work protesting salary delays.

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.

In July 2012, a strike by pilots threatened to disrupt the airline schedule and at least 41 flights were cancelled.

The airline, which has not posted profit since inception in May 2005, has reported a loss of Rs 1,151.50 crore in the March quarter, has a debt of over Rs 7,500 crore and almost an equal amount of accumulated losses.

The airline is under immense pressure from lenders to work out a turnaround plan. Kingfisher has never made a profit. Its share of India's domestic airline industry fallen from second to last among the six big carriers after it was forced to ground most of its fleet.