Kingfisher employees to get salary dues soon: Vijay Mallya

Kingfisher Airlines promoter Vijay Mallya has assured his employees that they would be paid their salary dues of eight months soon, but did not give a timeline, airline staffers said today.

The assurance came a day after a section of employees threatened to disrupt the matches of Royal Challenger Bangalore (RCB), owned by Mr. Mallya, in the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL).

Mallya met four representatives of airline pilots and engineers late last night and told them that their wage dues from June last year till this January would be paid as soon as the company gets money from the Rs 11,000 crore Diageo deal, the employees said.

However, he did not give a timeline by when these dues would be cleared, they said.

Last November, United Spirits, a subsidiary of Mallya's UB Group, had sold 53.4 percent stake to US-based Diageo for over Rs 11,166.5 crore in a multi-structured deal.

The Kingfisher chairman also informed the employees about the grounded airline's plans to restart operations. He also said he would personally meet DGCA chief Arun Mishra soon to submit the revival plan for the airline, the staffers said.

Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh had yesterday said that Kingfisher had not yet given a financially-viable revival plan to resume operations.

Kingfisher's Air Operations Permit or the flying licence lapsed on December 31 last year but it has two years to renew it from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) after fulfilling several conditions set by the aviation regulator to relaunch flight operations.

These include clearing of salaries and dues to all vendors and fulfilling all mandatory safety parameters.
The airline's operations had ceased in October last year following an unrest by the employees over non-payment of salaries since June till date.