Aviation

India's Kingfisher to resume wage payments

The chief of India's embattled Kingfisher Airlines promised Monday to give employees long overdue pay cheques after the government unfroze the carrier's bank accounts.

The airline, which owes millions of dollars to suppliers, lenders and staff, has appeared increasingly in danger of collapse.

But in the first piece of good news for months, liquor magnate Vijay Mallya told staff in a letter that authorities unfroze its bank accounts Sunday after the airline paid tax arrears, allowing him to resume wage payments.

However employees, without salaries since December, told Mallya they did not believe his assurances and demanded their wages be paid immediately.

"We have received similar emails assuring us (salaries) would be paid. However, none of the assurances have been met," the employees said in a letter to the Kingfisher chairman.

This has left employees "feeling cheated and deceived, resulting in (us) not believing your latest mail," the employees said, adding flight "operations have become unsafe due to stress caused by our financial constraints".

There was no immediate response from Mallya, known as "the King of Good Times" for his flamboyant lifestyle, who had said the airline would pay junior staff this Wednesday while pilots and engineers would be paid next week.

The salary payments had been made possible, Mallya said, because Indian authorities had unfrozen the airline's bank accounts on Sunday after Kingfisher paid 640 million rupees ($12.5 million) in tax arrears. AFP