Kingfisher Airlines declares temporary lockout
 

Mumbai: Kingfisher Airlines on Monday evening declared a temporary lockout of its operations till October 4. The decision of the airlines came few hours after Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh warned that the company will not be allowed to fly if safety norms are flouted. The Aviation Minister categorically clarified that no Kingfisher flights would take off till the engineers certified on the safety of aircraft.

Reiterating passenger safety was the foremost concern, Singh said that the Vijay Mallya-promoted Kingfisher Airlines can be shut down if safety concerns arise. "We can't allow them to fly until their aircraft is certified. Their engineers (who are on strike) are not certifying the aircraft. They can get the planes certified by other certified engineers also," he said.

"If they are not paying somebody, they (protesters) have the option to leave or take the necessary industrial action," Singh added.

Singh's warning came after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) summoned Kingfisher CEO after all its flights are cancelled following a staff strike. The DGCA said that the flights were cancelled after the pilots also joined the strike and refused to work over non-payment of salaries.

Over 50 Kingfisher Airlines flights from major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore were cancelled on Monday. Heated exchanges took place between the passengers and Kingfisher staff at several airports, including Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.

The airline in a statement said that it was taking all possible measures to lessen the impact of the employee strike.

Kingfisher Airlines declares temporary lockout till October 4 - Business News - IBNLive

So they decided shutdown temporarily before the government does it permanently:confused::confused:

Does anybody know What is the current pilot headcount at KF?

Used to be around 150-200 a couple of months back.

at present 305 pilots...

"We will keep you informed of further developments.

Best Regards,

Sanjay Aggarwal"

So that's where he went. This explains a lot. :sad:

Here the perception of a businessman & a Showman will oppose each other.. Mr Mallya knows as a businessman its very difficult to bring back the good old KFA.... unless he gets an "Angel Investor" who can take risk betting on the Management/Aviation Scenario in India. Practically he will never be able to repay the debts of KFA operating under 10 aircrafts. He has to scale up the fleets to minimum 30 so that he can pay the interests monthly even if its restructured to 50% of the current ratio..... the chances are very unlikely..........

Again as a showman who has to sustain his present System/business he will take chances to do some thing on KFA to make it fly again for few months more. Actions will be taken by the lendors if KFA is grounded for ever and It will create much larger problems for UB group and Many other business which he is involved.....

NB: Funny Joke : TOI reported that Mr Sanjay ,the CEO of KFA was enjoying his holidays in COORG while his Airline was bursting with Internal issues... No wonder his salary was increased to 40 % more 3 months back when the 90% of the staffs didnt received the salary for the past 5 months.....

Mallya is not, and never has been, a businessman! He is learning the hard way that it's easy to spend money, not so easy to earn it!

He is the ultimate example of pride coming before a fall!

With the utmost respect to the many hundreds of loyal, hard working staff at the airline, the sooner that idiot goes out of business the better!
He is running what has become a joke of a business at the expense of everyone he comes into contact with! Both employees and suppliers!

Kingfisher had the makings of being one of the best in the business!
In the early days he had the support of a terrific group of dedicated professionals. Some of the best in the business, that I had the utmost pleasure of working with!
It's such a pity he devolved the running of it to senior managers who couldn't run a piss up in a brewery! And he owns a brewery!

He is now reaping the 'rewards' of such stupidity and arrogance!

He won't quit of course until the UB Group, who have been partially bank rolling this financial disaster he has created, is sold, or itself goes under from the huge debt he has saddled it with.

Good luck to those of you who are still hanging on there. You really should now be looking for a job with a future!

Currently they have around a 150 pilots, more are planning to leave soon.

^Yep IndiGo is done with their hiring(majority who joined were captains), even GoAir is pretty much done, those who were hired last are waiting to sign contracts.

I personally know 5 KF guys who are headed to the SE, Citilink and from what I have heard quite a few of their comrades got work in the Middle east.

So it seems Parvez Damania is bad luck for his own airline and for any airline he works for. Irrespective of the airline potential, damania will manage to shut it down!
:cool:

It is not only Pervaiz Damania or one single person......

It is thought process of the entire mamangement that brought down the airline.......

The ambition to fly to SFO to Bengaluru non-stop, A340 bars debacle, reckless spending in every department; these are just a few to name.....

I still debate to myself, what was the single biggest reason:

A) The sarkari mentality of the ex IA/AI sr mgmt execs, or
B) the iniability of the sr mgmt to say NO or something contradicting to the BIG BOSS.....
C) Or the combination of BOTH of the above, Plus the sarkari mentality of the sr exec's to milk the cow while it lasts.......

KF had poor managers.........not everyone worked for the company......most worked for their Interests.....

Kingfisher staff's wife commits suicide, blames financial stress
 

Very Sad Indeed....

NEW DELHI: In a shocking incident, a wife of a Kingfisher Airlines employee committed suicide.

A suicide note recovered by the police points to financial stress as the cause for the woman's suicide.

The husband is employed as an engineer in the crisis hit airlines.

"Sushmita Chakravarthy, 45, was found hanging with a ceiling fan at her south Delhi residence in Palam Thursday at 1:30 p.m.," said a police official.

CNN IBN reports that the employee was not paid salary for the past six months.

A suicide note left behind by her said that her husband has not received salary for the past four-five months, police said. Her husband Manas Chakravarthy, a retired airforce official, works as a technician in Kingfisher Airlines.

Their son studies engineering in Assam.

"Manas called his wife on her mobile phone. When she did not respond he reached his house and found her hanging," the police official added. She was depressed over financial crisis, police said.

Additional Commissioner of Police (ACP) A.P. Ojha told IANS that Sushmita was depressed over the financial crisis for the past few months. The thought of airlines becoming defunct prompted her to take this extreme step, said police.

A NDTV report says that suicide note reads: "My husband and son are very caring and I love them. My husband works with Kingfisher where they have not paid him salary for the last six months. We are in acute financial crisis and so I am committing suicide."

Meanwhile, the crisis in embattled Kingfisher Airlines escalated after talks between the company and pilots and engineers in Delhi had ended in failure as the company had not made a commitment on payment of overdue salaries.

Kingfisher, once India's second-largest airline, is more than half a year behind on salary payments and has grounded its fleet since Monday after a protest by engineers over the weekend turned violent. Talks with employees in Mumbai on Wednesday ended in a stalemate.

"Employees demanded payment of long pending salary (seven months) prior to resuming operations. All employees expressed their keenness to resume work provided their dues are cleared expeditiously," the group of unidentified employees in Delhi said in a statement on Thursday.

The shutdown has further dimmed the outlook for the airline controlled by liquor baron Vijay Mallya. Kingfisher, which has never turned a profit since its founding in 2005, is saddled with $1.4 billion in debt, owed mostly to government banks led by State Bank of India.

KFA mess
 

This is interesting-
Aerospace Diary extends deepest sympathy to Kingfisher engineer's family

Neelam Mathews
Oct 4, 2012

As though making false promises and using unacceptable language towards people who finally spoke up after being denied salaries for 7 months, wasn’t enough, Kingfisher management, if it has a conscience left, should have sleepless nights following the suicide of an AME's wife in Delhi. We hear, the suicide note cited a worry that the family was running out of finances following stoppage of salaries by Kingfisher.

Our heart and sympathy goes out to the family of the deceased and to the senior AME who had to bear this loss.

While it doesn't come much as a surprise , we have yet to hear Kingfisher Chairman, in San Francisco at the moment, sending out a few words to the family.

Kingfisher Airlines today extended its partial lockout by another three days till Sunday as talks failed. Now we wonder, could this be a permanent situation?
It is time to take a cold, hard, rational view by Kingfisher, says CAPA. It outlines :
 Total debts: $2.49 billion including bank debts (approximately $1.1 billion), promoter debts, trade debts and other short term liabilities;
 Accumulated losses: $1.9 billion as at 30 June 2012;
 Market capitalisation: $214 million based on its current share price and $158 million based on the 6 month moving average;
 Promoter contribution: approaching $1 billion as at 31 August 2012 as well as UB Group securities, of which $220 million has been infused in the last 3-4 months. However, funds are being received incrementally on a daily basis just to cover bare minimum expenses which is not helpful to management.

Interesting point!! I cannot recollect where i read this, but it mentioned that Kingfisher Airlines if does not fly (operate) will incur a loss of 4 crores (INR) a day and if it does operate those 10 odd aircrafts , it will incur a loss of 8 crores(INR) a day. I think one doesn't need a MBA degree in finance to realize how deep in debts they are and how miserably the airline was being run...

Also heard that the partial lockdown , has been extended to 12Th of october. I guess the dates will keep postponing!!

yes its true.., Its extended to 12th. Also the Government is taking a call on KFA next week.. I think maybe its curtains for KF... But I was expecting it to run till December...

India Aviation Regulator Orders Kingfisher to Stop Selling Tickets

Aviation Regulator Asks Kingfisher to Stop Selling Tickets - WSJ.com

Non-bailable warrant issued against Kingfisher, Vijay Mallya - The Times of India

Its over
 

well its a good thing for airlines that i have retired lol:-
BWIA=GONE
AIR CARIBBEAN=GONE
AIR JAMAICA=GONE
AIR DECCAN=GONE and now,
KINGFISHER=GONE.:eek:

Perhaps a visit to Air India is in order
;)