Kingfisher shrinks further, asks many staff to stay at home

Kingfisher Airlines has withdrawn from several domestic stations and asked staff there to stay home till it finalises a recapitalisation plan. The employees at such stations are still on company rolls but it isn’t clear if they will be paid salaries.

Already, salary arrears are pending for at least the last two months.

Though the airline did not specify which stations it had stopped operations to, aviation experts noted that it has abandoned Kolkata and Lucknow entirely. Devesh Aggwaral of BangaloreAviation.com also notes that Kingfisher no longer operate services from Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi or Mumbai to Hyderabad. It has also withdrawn flights on the Chennai-Delhi sector.

[caption id=“attachment_257244” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Though the airline did not specify which stations it had stopped operations to, aviation experts noted that it has abandoned Kolkata and Lucknow entirely.”] [/caption]

“Even in former centerpiece Bangalore (where the carrier once had its single largest operation), Kingfisher operates just 25 flights per day, a far cry from the almost 60 flights per day that they operated two years ago. Other important cities around India, including wealthy Ahmedabad and Amritsar are being canned as well,” he said.

The airline has already withdrawn all international flights.

In a statement, Kingfisher said it has begun this year’s summer schedule with about 120 daily flights with 20 dedicated aircrafts.

“This is a holding plan that we have put in place pending re-capitalisation and return to full utilisation of the aircraft fleet. In this holding plan we have taken adequate care to ensure that part of our core inter-metro schedule is retained, while connectivity is maintained to many cities where we are the sole operator,” the statement said.

At the “several” stations where operations have been suspended, skeletal staff is present to assist guests who may have been previously booked to fly with Kingfisher. “Since we could resume operations after getting re-capitalised, most staff at these stations have been asked to stay at home whilst remaining on the Company’s rolls,” the statement said.

The airline said it was waiting for various decisions from the Government and consortium of bankers on FDI policy, working capital funding, etc. “All of these will have a major impact on the staffing decisions we will have to make.”

It also said that it has paid Rs 44 crore towards TDS dues, for which the deadline was 27 March.