This Article is From Oct 02, 2012

Kingfisher declares partial lockout till Thursday, aviation regulator summons CEO

Kingfisher declares partial lockout till Thursday, aviation regulator summons CEO
New Delhi: Kingfisher Airlines has declared a partial lock-out till October 4 (Thursday) after a meeting of the management with its striking engineers ended without an outcome on Monday.

Around 270 engineers went on a flash strike from Sunday evening protesting against non-payment of salaries. Employees of the debt-ridden airline have not been paid salaries since March this year.

In an email to company's employees on Monday, Kingfisher CEO Sanjay Agarwal said that the management will review the situation again on Thursday or whenever the employees end their strike. "A partial lockout is declared with immediate effect in respect of the non-management employees belonging to the Engineering and Flight Operations departments. Management will review the situation on October 4, 2012 or the day on which this illegal strike is called off, whichever is earlier. Until such time the company is unable to operate flights," the email said. (Read)

Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said today that passenger safety cannot be compromised. "If engineers don't give approval before take-off the aircraft cannot fly. So we cannot allow Kingfisher to fly while engineers are on strike," Mr Singh said.

The airline, meanwhile, issued a statement last night which said, "Acts by a section of employees has forced the management to declare a partial lock-out. A series of protracted and unabated incidents of violence is severely hampering work. The airline can operate safely but some recalcitrant employees are not allowing staff to report. The management has to take disciplinary action against these recalcitrant employees and so flight operations will be suspended for the next three days."

Earlier in the day, Mr Agarwal, in his hour-long meeting with 30 of the agitating engineers, said that the company did not have enough funds to even pay them a month's salary. Even as he urged the striking employees to return to work, he also threatened to halt all operations if the latter did not report back to work. The engineers were also denied a one-on-one meeting with the company's chairman, Vijay Mallya.

Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked Mr Agarwal to present before it today with a status report of the airline. The DGCA, which termed the strike an "internal industrial unrest", said it believed "the management was trying to resolve the issue".

The crisis at the airline, following the strike by the engineers, was precipitated further on Monday after several pilots also joined in the stir, resulting in flight operations being grounded completely. For the first time since its inception, not a single Kingfisher flight took off or landed across its domestic network on Monday. This after the striking engineers of the airline refused to certify aircrafts as airworthy, thereby not allowing them to operate.

Replying to the CEO's email, the engineering department today issued a letter, stating that no aircraft will be released from Chennai. (Read)

According to rules of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the aviation regulator, flights cannot operate unless they are declared fit to fly by engineers. The DGCA has made clear that it will not allow the airline to operate flights unless its aircraft are declared fit to fly.

"There have been incidents of industrial unrest in the past where flights of Air India have been affected. So like we did then, we are monitoring the situation," Arun Mishra, Director-General of Civil Aviation, said earlier on Monday. The airline's situation will also be discussed with the civil aviation ministry on Tuesday, he added.

Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh had said on Monday: "We are not in the business of shutting down enterprises. All future action will depend on the DGCA's status report on Kingfisher." He further said, "DGCA has decided that unless certified engineers, whether within the company or outside the company, have declared an aircraft safe, planes will not be allowed to fly", thereby hinting that to mitigate passenger distress, engineers belonging to other airlines could be called in to certify Kingfisher's planes.

And taking a cue from that statement, the Vijay Mallya-promoted airline has reportedly approached Air India and others for getting its aircraft checked for certification. "Kingfisher Airlines is in talks with Air India, IndiGo and Jet Airways to get its aircraft certified by their engineers for flying," an airline source said.

The Kingfisher management, which has not paid salaries to most of its staff since March, had a meeting with employee representatives last week, but failed to give any firm assurance.

The Vijay Mallya-owned airline is saddled with bank loans of more than Rs. 7,000 crore from 17 banks, which it has not serviced since January. State Bank of India has the maximum exposure to the airline at Rs. 1,400 crore.

The carrier has already grounded most of its fleet as of earlier this year. Under the government of India's rules, an airline needs to operate at least five planes in order to maintain its licence.

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