Kingfisher Airlines plunges on declaring partial lock-out

Kingfisher Airlines is currently trading at Rs 14.60, down by 0.75 points or 4.89% from its previous closing of Rs 15.35 on the BSE.

The scrip opened at Rs 14.60 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 14.60 and Rs 14.60 respectively. So far 203027 shares were traded on the counter.

The BSE group 'B' stock of face value Rs 10 has touched a 52 week high of Rs 30.90 on 07-Feb-2012 and a 52 week low of Rs 7.01 on 13-Aug-2012.

Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs 17.18 and Rs 13.36 respectively. The current market cap of the company is Rs 1180.74 crore.

The promoters holding in the company stood at 35.86% while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 14.30% and 49.84% respectively.

Kingfisher Airlines has been forced to declare a partial lock-out at the airline and the company has decided that the flight operations will be suspended until October 04, 2012. The company has taken this step 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 which were all unnecessary and unprovoked.

The airline company has more than sufficient number of - staff to safely operate its current schedule of flights as per the holding plan. The company has internally ascertained that despite the fact that a vast majority of the staff are willing to cooperate and support the company in these turbulent times, they are not able to/not being allowed to report to work on account of acts of criminal intimidation by the said same class of recalcitrant employees who have regrettably chosen to take law into their own hands, forcing a complete paralysis of operations.

In these circumstances, with the safety of passengers in mind, the company has been left with no other option but to take firm and decisive steps as advised in law, including disciplinary action against these recalcitrant employees, to bring the situation under control particularly with a view to getting flight operations back to normal at the earliest.