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The Kingfisher Chairman, Mr Vijay Mallya's attempt to boost the morale of his employees by announcing that the airline's accounts had been unfrozen appeared to have backfired on Monday, with the employees threatening a strike over unpaid dues.
Ignoring Mr Mallya's assurance of salary payment, Kingfisher employees threatened to go on strike from Tuesday, unless at least half the pending salaries were paid by April 3. Kingfisher staff have not been paid salaries for four months.
Mr Mallya in his letter to the employees had assured that all junior staff will be paid by April 4, while pilots and engineers would be paid by April 9-10.
The airline's employees have also appealed to the players of Mr Mallya's Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team, Royal Challengers Bangalore, to boycott IPL matches starting April 4. They said that such an effort will help in getting their dues.
Flights cancelled
Meanwhile, some flights from Delhi and Mumbai were reported cancelled as the staff did not report for duty.
However, there is no official confirmation on the cancellation. The debt-laden airline had announced on March 27 that it will operate 120 flights with 20 aircraft in a ‘holding plan' starting March 25 and ending on October 27, 2012.
The developments were precipitated by an internal communication from Mr Mallya, where he announced that “The formalities of un-freezing our bank accounts was completed yesterday following our payment of Rs 44 crore to the Income-Tax and Rs 20 crore to the Service Tax authorities before March 31.”
The authorities had earlier frozen close to 40 accounts of the airline for non-payment of dues.
Mr Mallya has also indicated that starting this week, he is going to be “personally available at each major station” for one day a week to listen to the concerns of staff at all levels.
“We have managed to keep the lights on in our days of darkness with adversity from every conceivable direction. The freeze of our accounts and consequent IATA suspension, the resultant loss of the BSP booking platform, the adverse media blitz and the loss of customer confidence are all serious challenges that we have survived,” the mail added.
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