Claiming that their salaries have still not been cleared, a section of Kingfisher Airlines’ staff, including engineers and pilots, is mulling the option of moving the Labour Court to expedite the settlement of their dues.

“April has ended and the airline has once again accumulated salary dues of employees of four months (January-April). Unfortunately, the top management has not bothered to inform us as to when it intends to pay us. The situation is back to square one,” some airline employees said here, requesting anonymity.

Labour Court intervention

The pilots were considering seeking the intervention of the Labour Court in the matter and get the employees’ dues cleared in an expeditious manner, they said, adding that they would soon take a joint decision with other staffers on the future course of action.

Last month also, a section of its employees, including pilots and engineers, had served an ultimatum to the airline management to clear their dues by April 20 or face a strike.

The crisis was averted at the last minute after Kingfisher Airlines’ Chairman, Mr Vijay Mallya, wrote to them assuring payment of salaries within a week in a staggered manner.

The employees now claim that as many as 200 employees, mainly engineers, have still not been paid their December salary despite Mr Mallya’s assurance.

Financial crunch

Kingfisher Airlines has a debt burden of Rs 7,057.08 crore and the financial crunch has hit its operations with the airline ranking lowest in market share at 6.4 per cent in March.

The airline has completely withdrawn from its overseas operations and is operating a vastly curtailed domestic flight schedule.

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