Mumbai: "Why are you calling me? What is there to know about a Kingfisher Airline employee?" snaps Sujata Nair. She is one of the nearly 1,500 people still on the Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) payroll who are desperately clinging to the hope that the "king of good times" will eventually pay them their dues. After relenting to talk about life after KFA, she talks of an incident, "My father underwent dialysis. It was only then that we learnt KFA had stopped paying our medical insurance premiums," she says. "I had to borrow from friends to pay the hospital bills."
The line appearing on the homepage of KFA's website (flykingfisher.com) seems to sum up the life of Nair and the airline's other employees: "We have suspended all future bookings till further notice". At the end of 2012, Vijay Mallya's airline crumpled under a Rs 7,000-crore debt burden. Many employees, who have pending wages of Rs 25-50 lakh each, hope that the court or the government will direct Mallya to pay them because "he has the money".
Over 75 per cent of KFA employees have found jobs after accepting huge pay cuts. "Seniors took a hit of 40-50 per cent. Even people with salaries of Rs 25,000 had to accept jobs for Rs 12,000," says Vikas Sharma, who claims to be better off because he lives in a joint family. Many who are still officially employed with KFA are doing contractual work or part-time jobs to look after their families. Some have become real estate agents, others are working in call centres, and yet others have taken up temporary positions in hotels.
Nair has just received a job offer from a hotel after being unemployed for two years, but she isn't happy. She has been promised a salary of Rs 20,000 per month, 60 per cent less than her last KFA salary of Rs 50,000. "This is how industry has been treating KFA employees since the company closed down. They know we are desperate…so the offers are demeaning," she says.
09/08/14 Joydeep Ghosh & N Sundaresha Subramaniam/Business Standard
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
The line appearing on the homepage of KFA's website (flykingfisher.com) seems to sum up the life of Nair and the airline's other employees: "We have suspended all future bookings till further notice". At the end of 2012, Vijay Mallya's airline crumpled under a Rs 7,000-crore debt burden. Many employees, who have pending wages of Rs 25-50 lakh each, hope that the court or the government will direct Mallya to pay them because "he has the money".
Over 75 per cent of KFA employees have found jobs after accepting huge pay cuts. "Seniors took a hit of 40-50 per cent. Even people with salaries of Rs 25,000 had to accept jobs for Rs 12,000," says Vikas Sharma, who claims to be better off because he lives in a joint family. Many who are still officially employed with KFA are doing contractual work or part-time jobs to look after their families. Some have become real estate agents, others are working in call centres, and yet others have taken up temporary positions in hotels.
Nair has just received a job offer from a hotel after being unemployed for two years, but she isn't happy. She has been promised a salary of Rs 20,000 per month, 60 per cent less than her last KFA salary of Rs 50,000. "This is how industry has been treating KFA employees since the company closed down. They know we are desperate…so the offers are demeaning," she says.
09/08/14 Joydeep Ghosh & N Sundaresha Subramaniam/Business Standard
