Indian airline carrier ‘Kingfisher Airlines’ is struggling to keep afloat in the aviation industry, but is expected to resume normal operations within four to five days following staff problems. The airline will return to operations after around 100 disgruntled employees of the airline agreed to return to work.
Kingfisher Airlines has not paid the salaries of its employees for the last six months, following which the employees had stopped reporting to work. The airline’s fleet has been grounded since October 1, 2012, after their engineer protests took a violent turn.
The airlines survival was brought into question following its temporary shutdown. Owned by Vijay Mallya, the airline was found in the year 2005 and since its inception it has not reported any profits.
Kingfisher was once considered the country’s second largest airline and is today burdened with a $1.4 billion debt, which is owed mostly to the government banks, led by the State Bank Of India. Sanjay Bahadur, the vice president of corporate affairs said, “About 100 people here agreed to return to work unconditionally”. Bahadur also said that the airline is expected to pay employee salaries for the month of March within a week. Before this weeks shutdown, the airline had operated just ten aircraft out of its fleet of 64.
