NEW DELHI: Even as over 1,000 Jet Airways pilots, who haven’t been paid for the past four months, have decided not to fly from April 1, the carrier late on Saturday expressed its inability to clear the dues immediately. Jet held that it will only be able to clear the remaining 85.7 per cent of the pilots’ December pay.
With the change in Jet’s ownership earlier this week, it was expected that the airline clears salary dues of pilots by March 29. “A part of the expected interim funding from SBI was supposed to be actioned on March 29. Unfortunately, the fund transfer has not taken place, and there is also no update on salary payment from the management. The collective decision of pilots taken at Mumbai and Delhi open house effective 1 April prevails,” Karan Chopra, president of Jet pilots’ association National Aviators Guild (NAG), had said in a communication to members late on Friday.
The NAG has now called for an ‘open house’ of its members in New Delhi and Mumbai on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube, in a communication to the pilots on Saturday, said “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.”
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These are complex processes and it has taken longer than we had expected and as such we are only able to remit your remaining salary for December 2018,” he added.
Meanwhile, a senior Jet official, on condition of anonymity, said that operations are unlikely to be impacted as they have enough manpower.
At present, Jet is flying only 35 aircraft, while it has a fleet strength of over 120. The official said that Jet has around 1,700 pilots; hence, about 600-700 pilots are available to handle operations. Jet would soon receive funds and clear the dues of employees, he added.