AFTER AIR INDIA NOW KINGFISHER : After Air India, Kingfisher pilots report sick, Delhi flights hit

from -http://economictimes.indiatimes.com

MUMBAI: Kingfisher Airlines faced fresh turbulence today when a section of its pilots in Delhi reported sick leading to cancellation of 17 flights, adding to the woes of passengers hit by the stir by Air India pilots.

"So far today 17 flights were cancelled as most of the Delhi-based pilots reported sick to protest non-payment of their salaries despite a written commitment by the chairman that January salary would start coming in from May 9," the airline sources told.

As the Mumbai-based pilots are also expected to join their Delhi counterparts tomorrow, the woes of the Vijay Mallya-owned airline are set to get further aggravated.

The pilots of the cash-strapped airline are protesting the "backtracking" by the management on its "assurance" of remitting their January salaries from May 9.

"So the Delhi-based pilots decided to report sick from today at a meeting last night," the sources said.

The cancelled services from Delhi include flights to Shimla, Dehradun, Dharamshala and Jaipur--routes operated by turboprop aircraft.

The Kingfisher Chairman Vijay Mallya had assured the staff in his May 5 communication to them that their January salaries will be remitted from May 9.

Last month also, Kingfisher management had said it would pay employees' December salaries between April 4 and April 9 in a phased manner, but some of the employees recieved their salaries as late as around April 24, the sources said.

Kingfisher Airlines has been facing financial troubles for almost a year now. The airline, which never made a profit since its inception in May 2005, reported a net loss of Rs 444.26 crore in the December quarter.

It suffered a loss of Rs 1,027 crore in 2010-11 and has a debt of Rs7,057.08 crore.

Due to the paucity of funds, the air carrier now operates only 110 flights a day with a fleet of 20 aircraft as against 400 flights per day last year with 66 planes.

The airline had a 6.4 per cent market share in March, and was ranked below the budget carrier GoAir, which cornered 7.5 per cent market share in the same period.