It is 11 in the morning on a sweltering June day at Terminal 3 of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, but workers of Cambata Aviation – from loaders to supervisors and technicians to duty officers – are twiddling their thumbs and milling around the canteen near the police station. In dire straits, they might as well be singing Telegraph Road – “I got a right to go to work but there’s no work here to be found”.
Cambata Aviation has not paid its employees in nearly three months. There are fears among the workforce that the company might be going belly up by the end of this month, and also that its top executive will flee the country and never return. The company’s chief operating officer said on June 27 that he couldn’t confirm whether or not the company will fold up on June 30. If there’s one thing that’s clear about the state of Cambata Aviation’s affairs, it is that the company is not flying high.
It’s been a rough ride for the company. Founded in 1954, Cambata Aviation Private Limited went on to become India’s first private ground handling company. Its founder, Kershi Cambata, passed away in May 2008. After the demise of Cambata Aviation’s founding patriarch eight years ago, two of his sons were locked in a legal battle at the Company Law Board. Cambata Aviation’s tale of woes sounds a bit like a mash-up of the infamous nosediving of an airlines with a hint of a much-publicised succession battle. With other members of the owning Cambata family in the US and elsewhere (Albert was found guilty of tax fraud after he moved to Switzerland, renounced his US citizenship and became a St Kitts and Nevis national), the person captaining the ship in India is Irish national Pat Casserly.
Workers allege that in the past few years, ground services of the few flights that are still handled by Cambata Aviation have been given to rivals. “We’ve been here since 6am,” said a worker Newslaundry met at Delhi airport and who did not wish to be named. “They are giving it to BWFS and Celebi,” he alleged, naming competing firms.
29/06/16 Kaushik Chatterji/NewsLaundry
Cambata Aviation has not paid its employees in nearly three months. There are fears among the workforce that the company might be going belly up by the end of this month, and also that its top executive will flee the country and never return. The company’s chief operating officer said on June 27 that he couldn’t confirm whether or not the company will fold up on June 30. If there’s one thing that’s clear about the state of Cambata Aviation’s affairs, it is that the company is not flying high.
It’s been a rough ride for the company. Founded in 1954, Cambata Aviation Private Limited went on to become India’s first private ground handling company. Its founder, Kershi Cambata, passed away in May 2008. After the demise of Cambata Aviation’s founding patriarch eight years ago, two of his sons were locked in a legal battle at the Company Law Board. Cambata Aviation’s tale of woes sounds a bit like a mash-up of the infamous nosediving of an airlines with a hint of a much-publicised succession battle. With other members of the owning Cambata family in the US and elsewhere (Albert was found guilty of tax fraud after he moved to Switzerland, renounced his US citizenship and became a St Kitts and Nevis national), the person captaining the ship in India is Irish national Pat Casserly.
Workers allege that in the past few years, ground services of the few flights that are still handled by Cambata Aviation have been given to rivals. “We’ve been here since 6am,” said a worker Newslaundry met at Delhi airport and who did not wish to be named. “They are giving it to BWFS and Celebi,” he alleged, naming competing firms.
29/06/16 Kaushik Chatterji/NewsLaundry