Kingfisher Airlines was forced to cancel about 40 flights on Monday after some pilots and crew went on a “strike” and refused to report for duty “on account of delayed salaries” and exploitation. The directorate-general of civil aviation said that they were keeping a close watch on the airline and was ensuring that no safety norms were violated that would endanger the passengers.
Kingfisher said the inconvenience to passengers was “as a result of the employee agitation on account of delayed salaries which in turn, arose as a consequence of our bank acco-unts having been frozen by the tax authorities”. The airline said it was “making all possible efforts to remedy this temporary situation”. About 10 Kingfisher flights from Delhi were cancelled or combined. In a statement issued on Monday evening, the airline said, “Despite all challenges, Kingfisher Airlines operated 145 flights today. All flyers whose flights were combined or cancelled were notified in advance and preparations for ensuring that we operate at least 80 per cent of our scheduled flights were made before hand to ensure no last minute changes.” In all 40 flights were cancelled throughout the day.
Mr E.K. Bharat Bhushan, DGCA confirmed the same and said that the airline was not guilty of violating any norms due to the cancellations as they had informed the DGCA well in advance. “We were informed of the imminent disruption of services due to the disgruntlement among the staff. As some of the crew went on a strike certain flights had to be cancelled. However we ensured that flights on schedule went off smoothly without violating safety norms,” said Mr Bhushan.
According to a Kingfisher pilot, the fact that the airlines was making them fly continuously was affecting their health and hence called in sick and did not report for duty.