Kingfisher Airlines pays salaries for June to select staff

Ashwini Phadnis

[Why should the management pay the old  employees, before the airlines flies off? Kingfisher Airlines management has decided to take care of their families or what, but what about the losses, these people created to the shareholders of both Kingfisher Ltd and U H Holdings Ltd---who will compensate them?]

New Delhi, Feb. 18:   The cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines has started disbursing some staff salaries after a gap of almost two and half months.
Sources told the Business Line that sections of the staff, mainly airport staff, received their salaries for June 2012 on Monday.
The monthly salary outgo for the airline is around Rs 20 crore and its staff members have not been paid regular salaries since June last year.
In November last year the airline cleared some back wages with a promise of settling more wages. This promise was not fulfilled.
The airline has over 4,000 people on its rolls.
Lenders’ move:
The decision to make part payment to staff members comes six days after a consortium of lenders led by the State Bank of India (SBI) took an in principle decision to recall the loan given to the airline.
Seventeen banks have an exposure of Rs 7,000 crore to Kingfisher Airlines.
The banks have now said that the matter of Kingfisher Airline’s loan had reached a dead end.
The airline which ceased operations in October last year, reported a loss of Rs 755 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2012.
The loss was reported despite the airline not operating a single flight during the period under review.
The Kingfisher stock closed at R. 10 on the NSE on Monday, up 4.71 per cent from Friday’s close.

Courtesy: The Hindu Businessline