Strike-hit airline grounds flights

INDIAN carrier Kingfisher Airlines has grounded flights for at least three days after a strike over unpaid wages.

The company said it had been forced to declare a lockout after “unabated incidents of violence, criminal intimidation, assault” by disgruntled employees who it said had been intimidating their colleagues. Flights will be halted until at least tomorrow.

Chief executive Sanjay Aggarwal met India’s airline regulator yesterday.

After the talks, he said Kingfisher would decide tomorrow whether to resume flights and said the airline planned to pay staff “in the next few days”.

Mr Aggarwal said half of ­Kingfisher’s employees have received their salary, though he said he had forfeited his.

“I get the last cheque,” he claimed.

The disruption is likely to hamper the money-losing carrier’s efforts to attract much-needed new investment. Its share price fell 4.8 per cent yesterday, taking its slide for the year so far to 27 per cent.

India’s aviation minister, Ajit Singh, has warned Kingfisher over safety compliance since its engineers are on strike and said the company must deploy at least five aircraft in its fleet in order to maintain its licence.