Kingfisher must give concrete plans: Ajit Singh

Kingfisher Airlines will find it more difficult to take to the skies as the civil aviation ministry wants the airline to satisfy the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on all accounts that includes safety, surety of continuation of hassle-free operations and clearance of dues.

"The DGCA has issued a showcause notice to Kingfisher Airlines to let us know what are their concrete plans are. They need to have a concrete plan in place not about talks for getting in investments from here and there. Tell us a concrete plan on how will you pay salaries and how will you make arrangements to run the airlines," civil aviation minister Ajit Singh told reporters in Hyderabad.

Singh was further quoted as saying that the airline will have to satisfy the DGCA that "there will be no safety issues and there will be no problems due to the financial crisis."

On Friday, DGCA had issued a showcause notice to Kingfisher Airlines asking why its flying license should not be suspended or cancelled as it had grounded its entire fleet and failed to offer safe, efficient and reliable service.

The showcause notice was issued after operations of Vijay Mallya-promoted airlines was impacted since September 30 after the employees went on strike due to non-payment of salaries since March this year.

The airline had announced a partial lockout till October 4. The deadline was extended to October 12 as the airlines attempts to convince its employees by paying a month's salary did not bring them back to work.

However, banks, who have lent Rs 7,000 crore to the airline and declared the borrowings as bad debt, have agreed to lend around Rs 60 crore on 'humanitarian grounds' to make payments to employees.

ALSO READ

Inflation-linked bonds to debut soon

Kelkar panel on natural gas pricing likely to endorse Rangarajan formula

DGCA scrutiny likely for airlines' levy on services

After lull, highway projects see aggressive bid offers