Kingfisher Airlines on Monday night declared a partial lock-out with immediate effect and suspended till Thursday flight operations which came to a grinding halt following a strike by a section of its employees.
In a statement, the Vijay Mallya-owned private carrier said it has been forced to declare a “partial lock-out” following a series of “protracted and unabated incidents of violence, criminal intimidation, assault, wrongful restraint and other illegal acts” including refraining from attending work, by a small section of “recalcitrant” employees.
The airline said the action by the recalcitrant employees who have regrettably chosen to take law into their own hands forcing a complete paralysis of operations were all “unnecessary and unprovoked.”
“It has been decided that flight operations will be suspended for the next 3 days, i.e. until October 4, 2012,” it added.
The operations got completely paralysed on Monday after pilots and some other staff joined the striking engineers protesting non-payment of salaries for the last six months, sending the shares of the airline tumbling by 5 per cent.
Before commencing legal action, the airline said it will make efforts to continue to engage with striking employees to persuade them not to indulge in any intimidatory tactics.
