The government today made it clear that grounded Kingfisher Airlines would not be allowed to fly till it cleared all its dues, including pending salaries of its staffers.
“Kingfisher cannot be allowed to fly without settling its dues. Just paying the employees is not sufficient...the DGCA has said that all stakeholders need to be satisfied,” the Civil Aviation Minister, Ajit Singh said.
Kingfisher needs to obtain statements from creditors, including banks, airport operators and employees that they do not object to resumption of flights, he said shortly after the airline’s CEO Sanjay Aggarwal met the Civil Aviation Secretary, K N Srivastava here to seek permission for resuming operations.
The Vijay Mallya-owned company “has no concrete funding plan. The bankers have to give go-ahead to restart the operations. The company needs at least Rs 1,000 crore to resume operations,” Singh said, adding that settlement of Airports Authority of India’s dues was “non-negotiable”.
He also said that the beleaguered carrier would have to prove its ability to raise funds. “They need to prove they have the ability to scale-up funds to sustain operations.”
However, Srivastava during his meeting with Aggarwal indicated that a decision on Kingfisher’s plea to resume operations could be taken only after the grounded carrier paid its staff their salary dues.
Official sources said Srivastava told Aggarwal that the issue of the airline’s dues to other vendors, including the AAI, could be taken up later but the staffers have to be paid before it could get clearance to re-launch its operations.
Salaries and allowances of Kingfisher employees, including pilots and engineers, have been pending for over eight months now.