One trouble less for Kingfisher Airlines

Ending 26 days of impasse, employees of the Kingfisher Airlines ended their strike on Thursday after the management accepted their demand of paying four months salary before the year-end.

The management also said the airline would be fully operational within a month and they would soon present their turn-around plan to the director general of civil aviation  for revoking suspension of their licence.

The breakthrough was achieved during a meeting between the airlines’ chief executive officer Sanjay Aggarwal and the striking employees in Delhi. “We have reached an agreement with the management on the salary issue. We will return to work back immediately,” Satish Chandra Mishra, an aircraft service engineer who has been leading the agitation, said.

“We will receive our first salary for March today (Thursday), followed by April’s salary on October 31 and then May’s pay by Diwali. Our fourth month’s pay (June) will be given by the year end sometime in December,” Mishra said.

The salary dues for July to September would be paid by March next year after recapitalisation of the airline, the agitating staff said.
The airline now hopes to approach the DGCA with a plan so that the suspension of its licence can be revoked. “We expect to be in the sky (operations) soon and put forth our case to the DGCA,” Aggarwal said.

After the airline failed to reply to the show-case notice by the DGCA, the aviation regulator had suspended its licence on October 20.

Private airlines can have ground handling subsidiaries
New Delhi: To provide relief to the financially-strained airline segment, the government on Thursday allowed private airlines to form ground handling subsidiaries at metro airports.

“It was decided that they  will be given an opportunity to form their ground handling subsidiaries at the metro airports,” a senior ministry official said after a meeting between civil aviation minister Ajit Singh and the management of private airlines.

“Now a new policy will be drafted to accommodate the private airlines’ ground handling divisions,” the official said. Currently, airlines are involved in their own ground handling or they hire a third party agency.

The ground handling services include not just check-in process, baggage handling and cargo handling, but also aircraft cleaning,  providing electricity back-up, water and transporting passengers to and from the aircraft.