Jet’s top brass eye 25% pay deferral; seek other savings

Mumbai: Jet Airways (India) Ltd’s senior management is considering up to 25% reduction or deferral in pay for a year, as the airline tries to ride out tough times even as it faced — and caved in to — political pressure over job cuts.
A senior Jet executive confirmed the development while not wanting to be identified.
Late Thursday night, Jet said it will no longer fire some 1,900 employees, many of them cabin staff, who were being asked to go because the airline, along with its Indian peers — has run into a perfect storm of rising fuel prices — an ill-timed international expansion and falling passenger traffic within India.
Jet Airways founder and chairman Naresh Goyal tried to repair the public relations damage stemming from two days of protests and political backlash over the job cuts by meeting some of the reinstated cabin crew at the Hilton Hotel in south Mumbai.
The rehiring adds to the economic stress that Jet, India’s largest carrier by passenger volume, is facing. Indeed, the airline has also started negotiations with vendors, including airplane lessors, parts and fuel suppliers to look for more ways to save costs.
Beginning April, Jet had started several routes, including to West Asia, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Toronto, Bangkok and New York. The number of employees went up from 11,088 as on 31 March 2007 to 13,163 through March 2008. As a result, employee remuneration, increments and benefits for the same period also increased 28.5% from Rs938.1 crore to Rs1,205.2 crore .
17/10/08 P.R. Sanjai/Livemint

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Categories: Jet Airways Oct 2008