Jet Airways pilots threaten stir over salary delay

Mumbai: With Jet Airways delaying salaries of its pilots and engineers for the second consecutive month amid a severe financial crunch, its pilots have warned the management of “non-cooperation”.

The Naresh Goyal-promoted private airline, in which the UAE’s national carrier Etihad holds a 24% stake, is facing an acute cash crunch after posting back-to back quarterly losses this year. Its losses were Rs 1,036 crore in the March quarter. Losses rose to Rs 1,300 crore in the June quarter.

“Withholding salaries, that too without prior notice, is a serious matter and the management will bear sole responsibility for any repercussions,” Jet Airways’ pilots said in a communication to the management earlier this week. “We would like to advise that failure to address the above points and not paying salaries on time would lead to non-cooperation by pilots,” they warned.

A Jet Airways’ spokesperson said the management was in dialogue with pilots to resolve some issues, including disbursement of



salaries.

Jet Airways had delayed payment of July salaries to its staff. It had proposed an up to 25 per cent pay cut in late June but was forced to defer the plan following opposition from its pilots’ union, the National Aviator’s Guild (NAG), and engineers.

“(Earlier) it was agreed that, henceforth, salaries would be paid on time and, if there were to be a delay, the same would be communicated to the pilots well in time,” the pilots said. “We are deeply disappointed over both these conditions being violated by the management and the pilot body would be sure to share our disappointment,” they said.

The pilots had written to the airline’s chief executive Vinay Dube late last month expressing their displeasure over the “unnecessary” increase in expenditure in recent times. In the new letter, they have also demanded that “all unnecessary positions and committees/groups created in the last three months be dissolved with immediate effect and the hiring of the expensive expats (vis-a-vis domestic pilots) be stopped forthwith.”