Hopes To Break Labor Impasse And Return The Airline To Operation

With its planes sitting on the ground and bankruptcy looming large, management at India's Kingfisher Airlines had scheduled a meeting Monday with the pilots and engineers hoping to break the labor impasse and get the airline flying again.

The Economic Times of India reports that the meeting has now been pushed to October 17. The meeting was planned for the airline's headquarters in Mumbai, but the location for the meeting has possibly been changed as well, though employees have not been told if that's the case. One representative from the pilot's and engineer's division had been invited to the meeting.

The airline's workers have been on strike since October 1 as a result of non-payment of salaries for the past 7 months. Workers hope to receive their back pay, as well as other concessions from the airline.

Kingfisher has begun to sell tickets again for flights beginning October 21, but it has to come up with a viable business plan approved by civil aviation regulators before they can begin to fly again.

The meeting now slated for Wednesday is seen as "make or break" for the struggling airline. However, one pilot who spoke on condition of anonymity told the paper that the meeting is "just a gimmick and nothing will emerge from (it)."

http://dgca.nic.in/