Said Safety Issues Would Be The The Cause Should It Occur

India's minister of civil aviation Ajit Singh said Monday that Kingfisher Airlines could be shut down with very little notice should any safety issues arise. The comments came as Kingfisher cancelled several flights and some Mumbai-based pilots joined engineers in walking off their jobs over non-payment of salaries.

The online news site newKerala.com reports that Prakash Mirpuri, Vice President of Corporate Communications for Kingfisher Airlines Limited, said in a statement that "A section of employees of Kingfisher Airlines has not been reporting to work over the last fortnight and over the past 2 days, they have been threatening and even manhandling the other employees who are reporting to work as usual." He said that flight disruptions and delays could be common across the network beginning Monday should those employees fail to report for work. Mirpuri called the cancellations of the flight "proactive."

The situation is being assessed by Arun Mishra, the director general of civil aviation, who called the CEO of Kingfisher to the capitol on Tuesday. The airline has reportedly not been able to pay salaries regularly since February. It is also reportedly deep in debt to oil companies and airports.

FMI: http://dgca.nic.in