Silver lining

New Delhi, Oct. 25: The employees of Kingfisher Airlines today agreed to resume work after an agreement with the management on salary arrears, igniting the beleaguered airline’s hopes to fly again.

The management today agreed to pay four months’ dues by December, ending the 26-day deadlock. The airline also withdrew the lockout. The employees have not been paid for seven months.

However, the directorate-general of civil aviation (DGCA) needs to be convinced before it allows Kingfisher to fly again. The DGCA suspended Kingfisher’s licence following safety concerns arising from the strike.

“All our employees will resume work today, including the pilots and engineers. We will now on continue to work together. We are going to be back in the skies very soon,” Kingfisher CEO Sanjay Aggarwal told reporters after holding separate meetings with striking pilots and engineers at the airport here.

Representative of the engineers, Subhash Chandra Mishra, said, “We are joining duty from today. We have accepted the management’s proposal for a staggered payment of four months’ salary dues by December.”

While the March salary will be paid within 24 hours, the salary for April will be paid by the end of this month. May dues will be cleared before Diwali and the June salary by December.

Dues from July to September will be paid by March after the recapitalisation of the airline.

Aggarwal had said the monthly salary bill of the airline was about Rs 20 crore, which meant the carrier needed Rs 80 crore to clear four months’ dues.

The resumption of Kingfisher’s flight operations may take at least three to four weeks as the airline has to get its suspended flying licence revoked by the DGCA, which has to satisfy itself on safety issues as well as on the viability of the airline’s financial and operational plans.

The Kingfisher management said it would submit the revival plan by November 6 to the DGCA. It has also said that it hopes to fly again soon, though the regulator has excluded the airline from its winter schedule.

Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh said while salary was “a big issue and the employees should be paid, the bigger issue than that is the airline’s fiscal assurance to the DGCA... They have lot of outstandings to the Airports Authority of India, to companies, to lessors, so its not just a question of salaries to the employees”.