Aerospace Diary

by  Neelam Mathews  -  December 1, 2015, 10:50 AM A court in Mumbai, India, has ordered that an impounded Airbus  ACJ319   owned by former Kingfisher Airlines founder Vijay Mallya must be sold before March 1. The jet was seized three years ago by India’s tax authority after Kingfisher failed to remit $28 million in service taxes collected from passengers. The   ACJ , manufactured in 2006, is on a finance lease from   CJ   Leasing of the Cayman Islands. According to a source close to the company, the auction is likely to take place within the next few weeks. The ACJ , registered as  VT - VJM  (Mallya’s initials), is parked at Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and might have suffered some corrosion, as Mumbai is fairly humid since it’s located on the coast. A maintenance technician told  AIN  that airframe patches near the wing root and  APU  area suggest that the airplane might also have b...

AIN AIR TRANSPORT PERSPECTIVE  »  AUGUST 19, 2013 by    NEELAM MATHEWS United Breweries Group chairman Vijay Mallya launched Kingfisher Airlines in 2005. (Photo: Neelam Mathews) August 19, 2013, 12:45 PM The death knell for India’s Kingfisher Airlines sounded as lender banks took possession of the airline’s 25,850-sq-ft headquarters property in Mumbai on August 10. Carrying some $1 billion in outstanding debt, liquor tsar Vijay Mallya and his United Breweries Group have seen wholly owned Kingfisher accumulate $2.6 billion in losses since its launch in 2005. Most recently, it registered a loss of $188 million for the quarter running from April to June. Once again it collected no revenue due to its  grounding on October 1  of last year. It still technically employs some 2,000 people, none of whom it has paid for the past 10 months, and retains a fleet of 15 airplanes out its former complement of 66, including three self-o...

Neelam Mathews June 6, 2013 As some 70 employees of the erstwhile Kingfisher Airlines from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderbad prepare to spend a second (protest) night at Kingfisher Airlines House in Mumbai alongwith their families tonight, the liquor tsar,Vijay Mallya is preparing to head for Formula One in Montreal. We are hearing Mallya might meet a handful of his employees tomorrow who are hoping (against hope) to get their owed salaries, before he takes off for a few weeks- far away from this madding crowd. We are also hearing CEO Sanjay Aggarwal has done his utmost to communicate with his employees. For the sake of humanity and good karma, we hope something comes off this elusive meeting should it take place.

Neelam Mathews March 23, 2013 Give the man his due. He won’t let go off easily what he owns. And what he wants, he gets. That includes his passion(s) –IPL, Formula One (this week in KL) and his ACJ. V isits to Delhi have paid dividends and last evening, around 5.30pm, his A319 ACJ did a Mumbai-Aurangabad-Mumbai test flight.  We hear permission was sought from the highest corridors of power.  India - thy name is 'everything can be fixed/sorted'. This has no reference to any particular person or event. So, once again, Vijay Mallya may very soon be flying again in his ACJ, a source told AerospaceDiary. The aircraft was taken ‘temporary custody’ of by the service tax department in January. This had partially grounded the tsar of the liquor industry to his palatial mansion in Goa- not a bad place to be- as he refused to fly the 'aam admi' way. Now as the games’ season starts, there are rumblings again of paying employees, starting Kingfisher Airlines again. W...

Neelam Mathews Jan 10, 2012 Letter sent out to Kingfisher employees immediately after em ployees of  Kingfisher Airlines  (KFA) threatened to file a winding up petition against the company on its inability to pay them salaries. Our humble comments are in BLUE Subject: Update Dear Colleagues I would like to wish you all a happy new year and take this opportunity of sharing important information with you. It's  9 days since the year started! 1. Re-Start - we have submitted a detailed restart plan to the DGCA which is in two parts. The first part deals with a limited re-start utilising 7 aircraft ramping up to 21 aircraft in 4 months. The second part is a full scale rehabilitation of our Airline growing to 57 aircraft within 12 months of recapitalization. Both plans contain detailed information on key assumptions and funding requirements including payment of outstanding salaries to employees. This plan has omitted giving NOCs required, we hear. S...

Neelam Mathews

AIN AIR TRANSPORT PERSPECTIVE  »  OCTOBER 29, 2012 by    NEELAM MATHEWS Kingfisher has lost the services of its Airbus A330-200s, one of which authorities impounded at London Heathrow Airport due to unpaid debts. (Photo: Airbus) October 29, 2012, 10:45 AM Striking pilots and engineers of India’s Kingfisher Airlines have accepted a three-month portion of their eight months of unpaid salaries and agreed to return to work, even as management struggles to get its suspended Scheduled Operator’s Permit   reinstated. Still, civil aviation minister Ajit Singh warned that paying salaries alone would not guarantee that Kingfisher would fly again.   “I think the Kingfisher problem is much bigger; even if they pay the salaries today, are they going to take off and fly? I don’t think so,” he said. “They have to give a very viable, financially sound plan, that they can maintain the schedule, pay the taxes, pay the oil companies, pay ...

Neelam Mathews Oct 28, 2012 "I've always been available (to my staff) says Vijay Mallya who just returned to attend the Formula One Grand Prix after weeks of absence and a 23-day of lockout following striking employees.

Neelam Mathews Oct 25, 2012 That the way Kingfisher Airlines and the ministry of civil aviation are reacting to, and handling  the present  crisis, is something nobody is able to fathom. Give them that- they have kept the industry pondering and speculating.   Do they want to close the airline or not is the question. While we here at Aerospace Diary are a dot in this vast confused ocean of thoughts, we have believed for a year now that the carrier wants to bring its fleet strength to the five minimum to retain its license and slots. That would mean a staff strength of just 500 if they run on the Delhi-Mumbai route. This would also mean just having to retain 60 captains and copilots, 60 engineers,a crew of 100 and skeleton ground staff. So, all those employees in hope of getting their 8 month salaries and hoping to see crackers lit at Diwali, there may be some time time yet to open the bubbly. But, that’s just speculation………..

Neelam Mathews Oct 23, 2012 As Sanjay Agarwal, CEO of Kingfisher Airlines bravely battled his way through through a barage of tough questions yesterday from journalists and staff during the day,one couldn't but help admire his fortitude, given that his boss is in hiding. There are many in the industry who say this effort by the airline is primarily, to stop employees creating a rukkus outside the Formula One race track in Greater Noida as they have threatened to do, to embarrass the Force India team owner, Vijay Mallya. Or else, how come the management, that has been so cagey with the buck, suddenly comes up with an offer for one month's salary and upped it to three months within hours? Also, call it intuition, but I am seeing a chasm developing between the engineers on their decision to go back to work. Any guesses? Lets not forget, the airline needs engineers and pilots to run just 5-7 planes. And when Agarwal said at the press conference there were just 1500 people...

By- SUBHASH CHANDRA AGRAWAL (Guinness Record Holder & RTI Activist) With curtains now finally lowered by authorities ordering suspension of air-licence for Kingfisher, Union government should take immediate steps to ensure recovery of public-funds including a debt of rupees seven thousand crores of public-sector banks before Vijay Mallya succeeds in his efforts to save his enormous property and assets in his other money-minting companies from recovery-proceedings of Kingfisher Airlines.  Passports of Vijay Mallya and his family-members should be impounded. System should be that such defaulters of public-money may not be allowed to remain in legislature with serious attempts made to make Vijay Malalya resign/sacked from membership of Parliament.   It is indeed surprising and shocking that such steps were not initiated by Union government till now despite families of staff of Kingfisher Airlines not being paid salary for last so many months leading to suicide ...

Neelam Mathews Oct 14, 2012 When Ernest Hemingway helped to make the phrase 'For Whom the Bells Toll," commonplace in his 1940-published book, he would never have envisaged how relevant it would be in the second decade of the 21st  century. Now, on the verge of extinction and with the impending shadow of arrest hovering over  Vijay Mallya and his top management, PTI reports, have now called for a meeting on Monday Oct 15, with engineers and pilots- labelled criminals not so long ago- to offer part payment of dues for two to three months (of the seven and a half months owed!).  What is it about this company that takes its staff so much for granted, the world is asking. It is apparent they just don't care anymore. Will the government now stop looking the other way? What use, we query, is an airline that is incapable of flying, not be let loose? Why not let another carrier with a solid business plan be allowed to start?  Why should Kingfisher...

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-...

Neelam Mathews Sept 30, 2012 Kingfisher Airlines seems to be getting in the news for all the wrong reasons. Lady luck seems to be looking the other way as far as the ailing carrier is concerned.  We just broke the story on the frustrated engineers without salaries, and now we hear on Sept 27, a tractor rammed into the carrier’s ATR “making a big hole” into it at Mumbai International Airport. So, now, we’re told, the plane count is down to 8, including 3 ATRs. While the airports really need to look at modernised equipment for ground handling and the tractor ramming into KFA may not have been the carrier's fault, memory is fresh still of earlier mishaps including the one in Nov 2009 when KFAs VT-KAC ATR-72 (Bhavnagar -Mumbai) skidded off the runway when landing. All the passenger safely deplaned after the accident. “The accident occurred due to unstabilized approach and decision of crew not to carry out a ‘Go-around’,” said the DGCA report.  Credit-jagdi...

Posted by- Neelam Mathews (YouTube) Credit MTV                                                                          Sept3, 2012                                                                                                                                            ...

Posted by- Neelam Mathews Letter written by Vijay Mallya to the people who have kept his airline going. Dear Colleagues As you may have read in the media, I have said that our Company will be re-capitalised whether the Government changes the current FDI policy or not. I have also expressed my anguish and sadness publically about unpaid salaries. If I was not confident about the future of our Airline, I would not make public statements nor arrangements to raise funds. I appeal to all of you to try and understand the extreme hardship that I am going through to keep our Airline flying to the highest safety standards. Every day, I have to write cheques to various vendors and service providers irrespective of the revenue inflow. We have continuing issues with the tax authorities with frozen bank accounts. As if that is not bad enough, some of our own colleagues are ensuring, by their actions, that our revenue prospects fall down further due to shaky guest confidence a...

Neelam Mathews July 23, 2012 Having just returned from the Farnborough Air Show, I must confess there were a few moments when questioned about the happenings on Indian aviation, it was difficult to put on a brave face. Today the world is in a capsule and it is amazing how much outsiders know about our inside going-ons. The major topic of discussion is ofcourse, our once five star airline, Kingfisher. “How can it survive? How come your government doesn’t shut it down? Don’t your laws protect people working in a company close to bankruptcy?  Insurance rates are high and investors now have little confidence? What about FDI? Which airlines are up for grabs? Most queries to which one has few answers. Almost being a month away, I came back to hearing more depressing news- the DGCA had been fired, Kingfisher had more pilot issues and was now flying with barely 10 aircraft (couldn’t confirm this) and fares have touched the skies. A businessman flying to Bangalore ...

Posted by Neelam Mathews May 1, 2012 Even as DGCA and the rest of the world has gone on silent mode as far as Kingfisher is concerned, rather ironically, May 1- labor day- has ushered in the sixth month of no salaries. I got some pictures from Bellvision.com of Vijay Mallya visiting the Shri Mukambika Temple of Kollur. It is here ten years ago he had installed a golden sheet to the flag post costing INR 50 lakhs, says the website. This time when Mallya was asked what service he would do, he is believed to have assured the authorities he would look into it, given that the gods would shower their blessings- one assumes! Did nobody tell him, charity starts at home-in this case- his own company employees- and IPL and F1 will follow. But to each their own.   

Aerospace Diary learns Kingfisher Airlines is operating 14 of its aircraft instead of the "holding plan" with 20 aircraft that promised "service integrity". While this is not confirmed, TV Channels are reporting many cancellations today already that points in this direction. One does hope that once again KF is not taking its people for a ride. This is a letter addressed to the founder of KFA by its employees. April 2, 2012 To Dr. Vijay Mallya Honorable chairman Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. Dear Sir, With reference to your mail sent on 1 April, 2012 all the undersigned KFA employees have come to a point where operations have become unsafe due to stress caused by our financial constraints. In the past we have received similar E-mails assuring us that salary would be paid on certain date. However, none of the assurances have been met. The resulted salary payments being overdue for four months has left employees feeling cheated and deceived resulting...

April 2, 2012 Neelam Mathews This emotional appeal went out to all Kingfisher staff for whom the fifth month without pay has started. Aerospace Diary recently learnt of a heart rendering story of a family suffering as a result of their only earning member with ailing Kingfisher who had to resort to getting financial help from a temple! There is a lot of scepticism amongst the employees- once bitten twice shy- whether they will actually get the promised amount. Even competitive carriers that were absorbing KFA staff with starting bonuses are putting a stop to it as they await the final bell to get employees at the lowest salaries possible.  Dear Colleague Further to my earlier mail and media statement, I am pleased to advise you that the formalities of un-freezing our bank accounts was completed yesterday following our payment of Rs 44 crores to the Income Tax and Rs 20 crores to the Service Tax authorities before March 31st. My only focus now is to start paying your s...