THE impasse in Kingfisher Airlines following the suspension of its licence by the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on October 22 has left in the lurch its 6,000-odd employees who have not received salaries for the past seven months. The crisis in Kingfisher brings to the fore the plight of pilots, engineers and other members of the workforce in a situation of turmoil in the aviation industry.
Sources in Kingfisher say that the delay in the payment of salaries started in June 2011. The miseries of the pilots were made worse by the absence of a body representing them or a union to take up their problems with the management. According to a DGCA directive on Civil Aviation Requirement issued in 2005, pilots were required to serve a notice period of six months before moving to a new airline. This requirement made switching jobs also difficult.
Kingfisher CEO Sanjay Aggarwal had issued a statement in June 2011 saying that the salaries would not be delayed beyond the 7th of every month. However, this was not to be and things only got worse. A senior executive from the management responded to several e-mails from pilots, acknowledging that the salaries of some pilots for October 2011 had not been paid and that the October salary for the balance of the pilots will be paid by Friday this week [December 2011]. The salaries of November for 4,100 employees were paid in January 2012. In an e-mail sent out on July 7, 2012, the management promised to disburse the salaries for February 2012 by July 13, 2012. Sources in Kingfisher said that the management did not stick to its promise, and the pilots decided not to report to work.
The unpaid employees of Kingfisher were offered three months salary, to be given before Deepavali. While a section of the employees in Delhi agreed to the offer, others have rejected it and demanded that the entire pending salary for seven months be paid at once. A source in the Kingfisher staff said: Ninety per cent of the employees want the salary to be paid at once rather than in instalments. We are not asking for charity, this is a legitimate demand.
The present crisis has also raised pertinent questions about the attitude of the DGCA and the Ministry of Civil Aviation towards airlines employees.
Girish Kaushik, chairman emeritus of the advisory committee to the National Aviators Guild, a body of over 800 pilots of Jet Airways, said, The Ministry of Civil Aviation should have adopted a more humane approach towards the issues of the pilots and other members of the staff not being paid salaries for months. Vijay Mallya cannot be allowed to get away with being so arrogant and irresponsible. This crisis also shows the need for the DGCA to function more effectively as an autonomous entity addressing the concerns of the pilots and other staff and not merely concur with the bosses of the airlines. In the case of Kingfisher, the Ministry of Civil Aviation should have taken the airlines to task from the time salaries started getting delayed.
Sagnik DuttaCOMMents
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