India's Kingfisher to explain flight woes

Senior executives from the troubled Indian airline Kingfisher have been summoned to the country's civil aviation authority after a weekend of cancelled flights and delayed wage payments to staff.

After initially blaming "bird strikes" for the cancellations, the airline admitted in a statement yesterday that its bank accounts had been frozen and said it was "in talks" with Indian tax authorities to "agree a payment plan and get the bank accounts un-frozen at the earliest opportunity".

Yesterday, the airline cancelled more than 30 of its 240 scheduled daily flights, and some 80 flights did not operate on Sunday, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded.

The airline said it expected to return to its published schedule in "two to three days" and promised affected passengers full refunds.

This is the second time in four months that Kingfisher has cancelled a large number of flights, without informing India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) - in contravention of civil aviation regulations.

As a result, the DGCA has summoned Kingfisher's chief executive, Sanjay Aggarwal, and a number of his executives to appear today to explain the cancellations.

EK Bharat Bhushan, the DGCA director general, said he had already called for a full report on Kingfisher's activities amid speculation the airline's licence was under review. He said yesterday: "They are bound to inform when they cut their schedule, but they have not done so."

He further said that all other airlines had been asked to accommodate all passengers stranded due to cancellations by Kingfisher.

Kingfisher's loss in the quarter ending December 31 widened to 4.44bn rupees (Dh331 million) from 2.54bn rupees, and over the past year the airline's shares have plunged 39 per cent in Mumbai trading.

Kingfisher is seeking new investment as it struggles under US$1.3bn (Dh4.77bn) of debt.

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