Jet following industry trend: Experts

Hyderabad/Mumbai: Jet Airways executive director Saroj K Datta held out some hope for the retrenched employees. "We will give employees, who are being retrenched, preference when things start improving," he said. "Rules stipulate that these employees be served a seven-day notice period but the company has decided to give them a month's salary as compensation."
Aviation experts say Jet is merely following industry trends by laying off employees. GoAir has already axed staff and so has Kingfisher (terminating the jobs of around 300 ex-Air Deccan employees). There are several factors behind the downturn, say these experts. The price of crude oil reaching unprecedented levels was one of the first factors that led to airlines bleeding.
Around the same time, Kingfisher and Jet launched new international routes only to find abysmally low load factors.
The US meltdown occurred soon after, jamming airlines’ credit lines; Kingfisher, for instance, had to defer plans to raise funds from equity markets. The travel industry took a severe hit following the global downturn. The final blow came when wary oil companies in India tightened the noose over airlines who defaulted on payments. The panic button had to be pressed.
But there have been murmurs of protest against retrenchment of Indian pilots by Jet when it has several foreigners who may be earning double. Jet has about 780 Indian pilots and 260 expatriates. Officials said Jet was planning to remove about 200 Indian pilots, including those on the fuel-efficient ATR aircraft.
16/10/08 Manju V & Hemali Chhapia/Times of India

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Categories: Jet Airways Oct 2008