It’s not just the banks and the staff who were hit hard when Kingfisher Airlines went down — the vendors supplying goods and services to the airline were equally affected.

“I don’t know where my next meal will come from,” says Nehru whose travel company was hired by Kingfisher Airlines for providing transport for its staff.

The airline owes ₹1.16 crore to his firm Nehru Travels. But what Nehru has received so far are mere promises.

He has sold off his fleet of taxis but has still not been able to pay off the lenders.

“I have changed my mobile phone number several times to escape the constant hounding of finance companies,” says Nehru.

There are several other vendors and current and former employees who have been handed out promises but no payments. They are all hoping that the Centre will step in and help them get their hard-earned money. According to Suja Joy, who worked with the legal department, the airline owes between ₹350 crore and ₹400 crore to them.

Arshad of Mumbai-based AB Travels claims that the airline owes ₹50 crore to travel companies that provided transportation for the staff.

He and his family are currently living off money given by his relatives and friends

But it is not just about the money. It is also about the miseries and humiliation brought upon by the airline on its employees and vendors who did not have the resources to fight it out in the courts.

S Ramakrishna of Kalyan Travels closed down his company because the airline did not reimburse his bills. “The Vice President of the airline, Rajan Suri kept assuring me that the money will be paid to me. Nothing has happened so far.” Nigel Remedios who worked with the HR department was shocked to get a notice from the Income Tax Department asking him to pay tax for the salaries he had received from the airline.

He had assumed that the airline had deposited the tax deducted from his salary to the IT authorities but it had obviously not done so. “I kept asking for Form 16 but they kept dodging me,” says Remedios.

As of now, there are around 2,000 employees still working for the airline though they do not know whom to report to.

Ryan Pereira who started working for the airline in 2007 and quit last year, said that there is no senior management executive whom they can contact for getting their grievances addressed.

The airline owes him about ₹7 lakh, including gratuity.

The employees as well as the vendors hope that the Centre will intervene and settle their dues first before letting the lenders to recover theirs.

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