New Delhi: The licence of Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) expired on Monday, three months after it stopped flying. Unless revived earlier, the licence will lapse forever in two years and then fly into history like Paramount, MDLR, EastWest and Damania. The lapsed licence of only one Indian carrier - ModiLuft that flew from 1993 to 1996 - has so far been revived again and it was later used to start low-cost carrier SpiceJet in 2004.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has set a stiff five conditions for KFA to fly again, which includes paying all salary dues to employees. These conditions were conveyed to KFA EVP Hitesh Patel on Saturday in response to an 'unsatisfactory' revival plan submitted to the aviation ministry last week. A KFA statement said the airline was confident of getting DGCA approval for its revival plan and that the funding will be provided by parent UB Group.
01/01/13 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
