NEW DELHI: The cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) further cancelled five more flights on Monday after its staff did not report for duty in Delhi and Mumbai.
Following this, an alarmed KFA boss Vijay Mallya convened a meeting of a section of the airline’s pilots and engineers at his Mumbai residence, to convince them that efforts were on to clear overdue salaries. However, the KFA staff were in no mood to listen to Mallya’s promises. The airline was forced to scrap its flights from Delhi to two-tier cities like Dehra Dun and Shimla.
Anticipating more trouble from the agitated employees, Mallya shot off a mail to his employees promising salary on pre-set dates. The KFA boss stated in his letter that ‘the formalities for un-freezing our (KFA) bank accounts was completed yesterday (Sunday), following the payment of `44 crore to the I-T Department and `20 crore to the Service Tax authorities before March 31’. He added that he was now focused on paying the pending salaries. But the e-mail, however, irked the staff.
“In the mail he has blamed everybody else except himself for the disruptions. He is not accepting his mistakes,” an unnamed KFA pilot told Express. A section of the KFA staff pointed out that the airline’s accounts had been unfreezed weeks ago.