Aerospace Diary

Neelam Mathews Oct 3, 2012 A meeting held with some 1000 Kingfisher Airlines employees in Mumbai ended some time ago with both sides - engineers and management- refusing to give in, Aerospace Diary learns. "It was inconsequential,"  an engineer told us. "The CEO has told us to wait for another three months till cash comes in," he said. It is believed the CEO Sanjay Aggarwal stalked out of the meeting. We could not confirm this. However, an official from the management told us on anonymity: "This is India..such things are bound to happen (no salaries for 7 months) . It will get sorted out once business plans are nailed." He also viewed the meeting with the CEO as "successful." "Looks like people will be back to work in 3-4 days," he added. Meanwhile, we are wondering what happens to the promise of Oct 4 made to the DGCA by the airline? Backgrounder:

Neelam Mathews Oct 1, 2012 A press release from Kingfisher Airlines released late evening says "following a series of protracted and unabated incidents of violence, criminal intimidation, assault, wrongful restraint and other illegal acts ........ by a small section of recalcitrant employees, which were all unnecessary and unprovoked ,  the management has been forced to declare a partial lock-out at the airline, effective immediately. FYI- The small section are the guys that run the aircraft who haven't been paid for seven months- many whose kids have been pulled out of school because they can't pay their fees! Flight operations will be suspended upto October 4, says Kingfisher.Tickets on the website are available from Oct 5. But nobody knows how long the temporary lockout might actually last. All this comes in the background of Sid Mallya making desperate tweets for all to vote him as the GQ Digital Man of the Year and Mr Vijay Mallya tweeting-...