Trio of Kingfisher Executives Resign

Tuesday, 11th June 2013 at 01:35am

The final hurrah of Kingfisher had long been over more than a year ago following a series of financial meltdown that resulted to cancellation of flights and grounding of aircraft.

After a series of financial difficulties Kingfisher suffered from last year, now, three of its senior officials recently call it quits.

Among those who tendered their resignation were its Chief Information Officer, Saurav Sinha; Capt. Ronald Nagar, its Flight Operations Head; and Ajit Bagchi, a Cabin Crew Head.

Also in the offing is the rumored protest by its pilots who will demand payment of their salaries that the doomed airline has withheld since its grounding.

The resignation of the three senior executives came on the heels of the departure of other two top officials, Hitesh Patel and Murali Ramachandran, Executive Vice President and Ground Handling Chief respectively.

The troubled carrier was unable to operate again after the government suspended its license in October last year and its subsequent failure to renew it in December 2012 upon its expiry.

As recent as last month, it submitted to DGCA a revival plan asking permission to operate again. Unfortunately, the agency was not satisfied with the airline's plan, thus the rejection.

Apart from the departure of its senior executives and key officers, some pilots and engineers have already resigned from the company during the past month.

The Mumbai-based pilots of the airline are also concocting a protest action over the non-payment of their salaries.

According to a source, a pilot who granted interview on condition of anonymity, their salary for July 2012 was only released in March this year and nothing followed since then. He said that the management didn't give them any definite date as to when can they get the rest of their salaries.

The troubled airline has accumulated a debt of more than Rs7,000 crore to the banks on top of its huge debt to its stakeholders and service providers. It also reported a net loss of Rs2,142 crore for the quarter ending March this year. For the whole FY13, its net loss stands at Rs4,000 crore.

By: Pete Lee.