Kingfisher fires 90 cabin crew in two months

Late last year, a public furore created by Jet Airway’s decision to lay off 1,900 employees in one go forced the airline to reinstate them in less than a week.

Its rival Kingfisher Airlines seems to have learnt a lesson from the whole episode. So, now when Vijay Mallya’s airline is sacking people, it is being done in a quiet and systematic manner.

An employee at Kingfisher’s reservation department who was fired this month told DNA  that the FSC laid off around 90 cabin crew, four sales personnel from Delhi and several other staff over the last two months.

“I was asked by the HR (human resource) to resign. They told me that if I didn’t, then they would terminate me. This is what they are doing with other employees, too. They create a situation where employees are forced to quit,” said the former employee of the airline.

Poor performance is generally used as an excuse to get rid of an unwanted worker.
She said morale of the employees was very low as they have not received any increment or promotion in the last one year.

According to her, integration of Kingfisher and G R Gopinath-owned Deccan
Air has also resulted in over 400 employees leaving the company.

“The company has been cutting its employee strength, but in a phased manner, to avoid coming under the media glare. Instead of firing staff in one shot, they are letting go one or two persons a week,” she alleged. 

And such sporadic firing has been going on at the airline for some time to align reduced capacity with workforce. The full-service carrier, which has moved 70% of its capacity to budget class, slashed 20% capacity in FY09.

Sources at Jet Airways also revealed that the airline was reducing staff to cut personnel costs.

Responding to queries on the gradual lay-offs, a Kingfisher spokesperson said; “There have been no lay-offs of 90 cabin crew as alleged by your source. This is untrue and we completely deny it. I also categorically state that there have been no lay-offs in any department”.

He further said the information on four resignations from the Delhi team was untrue.
“More importantly, as I mentioned, it may be extremely tempting to view normal attrition with a different lens just because the entire aviation sector is in turmoil,” he said.