Kingfisher Airlines asks striking employees to resume flight operations

Kingfisher Airlines, which has declared a lockout till October 12, has asked all its employees - on strike over non-payment of salaries - to return to work to resume flight operations soon.

In a letter to employees, Kingfisher CEO Sanjay Aggarwal said: "Unless we can keep our operations going, we will not be able to rectify the situation. We need you to help us to have any chance of getting back to normalcy...Without all of you, without exception, coming back to work, we will have no way forward."

Observing that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued a show cause notice due to disruptions causing inconvenience to travelling public, Aggarwal said: "We have currently announced suspension of operations until October 12 and sincerely hope that we will able to present a viable plan to DGCA to allow us to resume operations on October 13."

On unpaid salaries, he said: "Given the pain that all of you and your families have gone through over the last year due to delay in payment of salaries, we can only tell you in utmost sincerity that this situation pains us immensely too."

The letter, which gave no concrete assurance as to when the dues would be paid , came a day after Kingfisher pilots, engineers and other staff staged a demonstration here to demand early payment of seven month dues.

They blamed the management for "not listening to our problems. We are ready to talk but have not received any response".