After the suspension of Kingfisher’s license by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and crashing of KFA management’s 3-month salary proposal to most of its 4,000 employees, Vijay Mallya, the chairman of Kingfisher airlines spoke for the first time on twitter, “I travel 24x7 where my multiple work responsibilities take me. Sections of media call me an absconder because I don't talk to them.
The Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai pilots and engineers have rejected Kingfisher Airlines’ three-month salary offer. However, a majority of Mumbai pilots and engineers have accepted the salary offer; according to airline sources.The Delhi-based employees are planning to stage a protest when Mallya comes at F1, Grand Prix, a sporting event in Noida.
On Monday, Kingfisher management agreed to pay the salary of March (which has been paid to only 2,000 of the 4,000 striking employees) within 24 hours while the April salary will be within a week and May salary before the festival of Diwali.
Rejecting the management's offer out rightly, Delhi based pilots and engineers have shot a mail to Sanjay Aggarwal, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of KFA
Delhi based Kingfisher pilots have sent a mail asking,“ Why are conditions being imposed on the disbursement of our rightful salaries? Why are salaries not paid in continuation as per the calendar month as the number of pending month’s salary remain the same?”
Even the Delhi engineering staff have written in the mail saying," We are refusing your 3-month salary offer because you have lost our faith. We appeal to you to pay the salary from March 2012 to June 2012 at one go on or before October 26 as March salaries for around 75% employees has already been paid.Kindly clarify if the salaries for subsequent months will be credited by 10 th of every month without fail"
On Monday, the employees made an emotional appeal to Mallya to talk directly to them. Subhash Chandra Mishra, a senior Engineer of Kingfisher airlines said," The management has been fooling us till now. They are playing with our emotions and sentiments. We want Dr Mallya to meet us face to face, not through representatives or Internet or any other indirect means," he said.
Meanwhile, Ajit Singh, civil aviation minister, refused to intervene in the Kingfisher Airlines mess. He said Kingfisher is a privately owned company and so the government can't intervene and make the airline pay staff salaries. He also said that the payment alone will not be enough to make Kingfisher fly and it will have to submit a realistic plan.
"It is a private company, doesn't come under any ministry. Yes they have a problem, but the government cannot interfere. KFA has to give a viable operational preparedness plan to DGCA to fly again," Singh said.
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