Cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines? plan to add 40 more daily flights to its current schedule is likely to face a roadblock with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) seeking assurance from the airline on maintaining its schedule. Pilots and engineers of the airline have struck work five times in the last five months as the airline could not pay their salaries, leading to several flights getting cancelled.
?They have sought an increase in the number of flights, but before clearing it, we need to ensure that the airline can maintain this schedule without mass cancellations,? a senior DGCA official told FE on condition of anonymity. ?It is not just the fleet that we will check, we have to see that the airline?s cash flows are strong enough to pay salaries for employees so that services don?t get disrupted and they also need to have strong enough cash flows to make payments to oil companies to ensure there is no sudden stoppage in services.?
?We have met the chief executive officer Sanjay Aggarwal who gave us an update on the airline?s current operational capabilities,? the DGCA official added. ?We will also carry out our audit of the airline?s capabilities and then take a call on whether to approve their new schedule.?
Aggarwal had met the new DGCA chief Arun Mishra on August 21 and gave a presentation on the airline?s performance. Aggarwal also explained to the DGCA that the airline had begun making salary payments.
Kingfisher, which has been operating a skeletal schedule of 120 daily flights since February with 17 planes, is planning on raising the number of daily flights to roughly 160. Sources said the airline wants to increase the daily flights as three Airbus A320s that were grounded since February are now ready to rejoin the fleet.
The airline declined to comment on the development.
Kingfisher?s current flight schedule is a third of what it was operating last year. Since November 2011, the airline has revised its schedule twice, first bringing it down to 210 daily flights in November 2011 and then down to 120 in February 2012. Since April, it has stopped operating international flights.
As a result of frequent cancellations due to strikes, Kingfisher?s market share has slipped to the bottom of the pile with just 3.4% share. In May last year the airline was the second largest passenger carrier in India with roughly 19% market share. Kingfisher?s flights have been cancelled five times since April as employees struck work due to non-payment of salaries.