The management of crisis-ridden Jet Airways got a temporary relief as its pilots’ body has agreed to give 14 more days to the company to pay their salary dues and deferred its call for halting operations to April 15.
“There was meeting with National Aviators’ Guild (NAG) in both Mumbai and Delhi offices. The management said that there are technical issues involved and they want some time to resolve the salary issue. The NAG agreed to two weeks of time,” an official present at the meeting told TMS.
Jet Airways has been defaulting on salary payments to pilots, engineers and senior management since August last year.
The NAG, which claims representation of around 1,100 of the total 1,600 pilots employed with the full-service carrier, announced last month that its members will not fly from April 1 unless their pending salary dues were cleared and clarity on future payments provided by March 31.
Jet Airways engineers had also reportedly threatened to stop work from April 1, if their dues were not cleared by March 31.
However, the airline, which is now under the ownership of State Bank of India-led consortium of lenders following a debt-recast plan, on Saturday said it could remit only the pending 87.5 per cent of December salaries to pilots and others.
The same day, the loss-making airline also expressed its inability to clear the dues for the remaining three months immediately.
“The board of directors and the management team are working as fast as possible to implement the resolution plan agreed with the consortium of Indian lenders to quickly restore the much-needed stability to our operations and build a sustainable future for the airline,” Jet Airways chief executive officer Vinay Dube said in a communication to pilots and engineers on Saturday. This has averted the uncertainty looming over the fate of Jet flights.