Kingfisher Airlines CEO Aggarwal quits

NEW DELHI: Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) CEO Sanjay Aggarwal has resigned and now the grounded-since-October-2012 airline has no non-UB Group person in its management as all the professionals hired from outside have quit.
While Aggarwal could not be reached for comment, the grounded airline's spokesman did not say anything on the issue. The CEO's move cast further doubts on the airline's revival prospects and its stock price on BSE fell 4.9% to a life-low of Rs 2.7 on Monday.
Aggarwal had joined KFA in September 2010 from low-cost SpiceJet and was the last of the professionals to quit the airline. In the last few months, key KFA vice-presidents Rajesh Verma and Hitesh Patel have quit. Now UB Group's A Raghunathan is the only senior management person left in KFA.
The airline, which hasn't paid employees for the last 18 months, is contesting 27 winding-up petitions, including one filed by a consortium of bankers.
KFA had accumulated losses of Rs 16,024 crore as of March 31, 2013, and its net worth on that date was a negative Rs 12,920 crore.
The airline's auditors have doubted the airline being a going concern as "its net worth is completely eroded, the scheduled air operator permit issued by DGCA has lapsed" and several winding up petitions are filed against it.
"There is very little hope of KFA flying again. While we haven't been paid for months and our families are in dire financial crisis, company owner Vijay Mallya has spent crores on buying cricketers for his IPL team. In any other country, the law would have caught up with the KFA management but here anything goes," said an employee, who did not wish to be named.