Kingfisher woes to continue

NEW DELHI/BANGALORE: Kingfisher Airlines’ recent cancellations have invited the wrath of the harassed public. In a statement on Monday evening, the airline said that the current disruptions were inevitable owing to the sudden attachment of their bank accounts by the Income Tax Department.In the event of its bank accounts being attached, the airline was unable to make operational payments leading to the unscheduled curtailment of its flights.“We are in dialogue with the I-T authorities to agree on a payment plan and get the bank accounts unfrozen at the earliest. We are appealing to them to see reason that inconvenience to the travelling public is not in anybody’s interests,” Kingfisher’s spokesperson Prakash Mirpuri said, adding that employee salaries can be paid and the grounded aircraft can be recovered faster once the bank accounts are unfrozen and the schedule restored on priority.The airline, while deducting TDS from its employees’ salaries for at least the last two years, had stopped depositing the same with the I-T Department. “Now, when the department decided to take stern action, the airline calls for a milder action to allow flight operations in the public interest. Either way, the ball remains in their court as the DGCA (as a regulator) also cannot take extreme action against the airline. They are indirectly arm-twisting the government,” a ministry official said.