There is more trouble brewing for Kingfisher Airline and its promoter, Vijay Mallya. The airline’s employees have given Mallya 24 hours to respond to their mail after which they will be free to take any action as deemed necessary to “highlight to the nation the truth behind the airline.”
This comes almost 24 hours after Mallya met with sections of employees in Delhi and is said to have pointed out that he was not aware that salaries for June 2012 had not been disbursed.
The employees have said that the response is “viewed, both with incredulity and trepidation.”
“Trepidation, more so when you intended to be sincere, comes to the fore because there appears to be a humongous disconnect between the Management and the Chairman as regards employee’s affairs,” the employees have said in an email.
The mail adds that the airline’s short history has repeatedly revealed that the “employees have and will continue to be treated with utter contempt unmindful of what public utterances are made about you being ‘God Fearing’ etc.
Avoiding payment of salaries in such a brazen manner and then resorting to untruths to justify the delays is the worst form of cruelty being brought to bear on us and our dependents.”
The employees further say in the mail, “Our endeavour to seek justice from within the organisation is all but exhausted. We would perforce have to take the matter into the public domain and appraise the nation, through all forms of media and other democratic means, of this repeated and brazen manner with which you have held us as captives to launch your ‘Bargaining War’ with the Government. We resent the idea of being used in such a despicable manner to meet your ends.”
Kingfisher’s employees have not been paid for the last ten months even as the airline suspended operations in October last year.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation has said that the airline has to pay pending salaries to its employees while the Directorate General of Civil Aviation wants it to get comfort letters from the Income and Service Tax departments and a consortium of banks that is owed over Rs 7,000 crore before it can take a decision on the airline restarting its operations.