Kingfisher Airlines freezes pilot hiring

Hyderabad: Kingfisher Airlines has frozen pilot recruitments and has not honoured the ‘letters of intent’ it issued for the position of co-pilots earlier this year, according to highly placed sources.
Young pilots, who received letters of intent from Kingfisher Airlines promising them co-pilot positions once they completed Type Rating training in institutes abroad say, several of them have successfully completed their course and have got Indian licences, but have not heard from the airline regarding the promised job.
A young pilot who had been issued this letter says, ”The letter was issued to me in April and it clearly stated that I had to bear the course fee at the institute recognized by the airline. Since a job at the end of the course was guaranteed I coughed up Rs 35 lakh for this training programme. But after I came back, I contacted them (the airline) but I was asked to stay put and that they would get back to me, which has not happened so far.”
When contacted, a Kingfisher spokesperson – appearing hassled – said the airline would comment on the matter after a day. He referred to the statement issued by the airline on Saturday on the salary cut issue that spoke of the turbulence in the aviation industry meriting reduction in the capacity deployed.
20/10/08 Roli Srivastava & Sudipta Sengupta/Times of India