Kingfisher surprises employees with salaries

A week after its lenders decided to recover their dues, cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines has started paying salaries to its employees and has also approached the aviation regulator seeking licence renewal, PTI reported quoting sources.

It said some employees had received salary dues and those in the lowest package and some engineers and pilots had also received a month's salary.

The airline stopped paying salary to its employees in May last year, though salaries had been getting delayed even much before the crisis broke out last October.

According to the sources the carrier's chief executive Sanjay Agarwal was in the capital to meet the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to make a fresh request to resume operations.

Meanwhile, shares of the company, rose as much as 5 per cent on the BSE, the maximum allowed on a day, after one of its promoters, United Breweries Holdings, increased its loan limit for the ailing carrier to Rs750 crore from Rs300 crore.

UB Holdings said yesterday that it had sought shareholders' approval for revising the lending limit for Kingfisher and to authorisation of its board of directors to take necessary action in the matter.