Kingfisher Airlines' license has been suspended. Its licence to fly commercial airlines was suspened by the Director General of Civil Aviation - DGCA - for failing to come up with a viable plan to revive its finance and resolve the operational problems and the impasse with its employees over payment of their salary dues. An official of DGCA said the crisis hit airlilenes' reply to the show cause notice was found not satisfactory.
Our correspondent reports, suspension of flying licence implies an immediate halt to all bookings on the entire Kingfisher network and through travel agents. Kingfisher airline had extended its lockout till 23rd of this month as the impasse with its employees over non-payment of salary dues continued.
The DGCA had issued the show-cause notice on October 5 to the crisis-ridden carrier asking why its flying licence should not be suspended or cancelled as it was not adhering to its flight schedule and abruptly cancelling flights frequently during the last 10 months causing great inconvenience to the travelling public. The airlines was given 15 days to respond and the deadline expired today.
The Private carrier has been saddled with a loss of 8,000 crore rupees and a debt burden of over 7,500 crores, a large part of which it has not serviced since January. The airline currently had only 10 operational aircraft compared to 66 a year ago.
In case of cancellation of the licence, the airline will have to apply afresh to the Civil Aviation ministry for a licence and complete the entire long-drawn official, legal and technical processes.
Meanwhile, Civil Aviation minister Ajit Singh said that Kingfisher Airlines have to satisfy DGCA about safety flight operations and ensure that its employees are not disgruntled before it resumes its services. Talking to the media in New Delhi, he asserted that security of passengers cannot be compromised. He said the licence of the airline was suspended as the aviation regulator was not satisfied with the reply by the airline to the show-cause notice.
Replying to a query on revival plan, Ajit Singh maintained that the airline has to come back to DGCA with concrete plans regarding safety of operations to convince it to revoke the suspension of the licence.
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