Beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines on Tuesday announced temporary suspension of operations from several cities and asked an undisclosed number of staff to stay at home till the time it gets fresh infusion of funds.

Faced with a cash crunch resulting in several employees not getting salaries and dues for over three months, the airline also did not rule out a lay off saying all this would depend on various decisions to be taken by the government and its bankers about funding and other issues.

Going in for a "holding plan" pending re-capitalisation, it said, "there are several stations to which operations have been temporarily suspended".

"Since we could resume operations after getting re- capitalised, most staff at these stations have been asked to stay at home whilst remaining on the Company's rolls," an airline spokesperson said.

However, he did not disclose the number of such staff or that of the stations from where operations have been suspended.

On speculation about lay offs, he said "we are in a 'holding' pattern right now and are waiting for various decisions from the Government and our consortium of bankers on FDI policy, working capital funding, etc. All of these will have a major impact on the staffing decisions we will have to make."

A consortium of 13 PSU banks, including State Bank of India, have an exposure of Rs 5,608.07 crore to Kingfisher as on February this year. Kingfisher has a debt of over Rs 7,000 crore.

The airline said it has begun this year's summer schedule by operating approximately 120 daily flights with 20 dedicated aircraft." Kingfisher was flying 28 planes and 140 flights in the 2011-12 curtailed winter schedule against the proposed 400 daily flights with 64 aircraft for this period.