Kingfisher Airlines,
Vijay Mallya's cash-strapped airline, has told the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) that it had curtailed its flight operations due to the grounding of six of its 17 aircraft fleet and pilots' strike.
The struggling carrier's net loss widened by a
whopping 147 per cent to Rs 650.8 crore in the quarter ended June, from Rs 263.5 crore a year ago.
Kingfisher CEO Sanjay Agarwal made a presentation on Tuesday
on the airline's performance - severely impacted by financial distress - before DGCA chief Arun Mishra in New Delhi.
Agarwal is understood to have informed the regulator that payment of pending salaries to pilots, who have been frequently striking work over the issue, has begun from Tuesday.
The pilots are
now being paid their March salaries.
Following fears that the airline's safety performance could be adversely affected due to financial crunch, DGCA is carrying out a safety audit of the airline and Agarwal's presentation was part of that process.
The airline, which had promised to operate about 120 daily flights this summer season with 17 planes, was
operating only 85 flights with 11 aircraft since August 17.
While six aircraft - three Airbus A-320s and three turboprop ATRs - grounded, the airline was operating six A-320s and five ATRs, Agarwal told DGCA.
He said the curtailment of flights had been a result of industrial unrest (strikes by pilots) and grounding of these planes.
With inputs from PTI 
Special 
