New Delhi: The employees of the long-closed airline company Jet Airways have suffered a major setback. Grounded Jet Airways has decided to send 60 percent of its employees on leave without pay, including senior managers, and may temporarily cut the salaries of the remaining employees. Sources said on November 18 that the airline’s revival plan has again run into trouble.
“Even Sanjeev Kapoor (Chief Executive Officer of Jet) has agreed to take a substantial pay cut,” a source told Moneycontrol. Kapoor tweeted to pacify the employees, saying, “No one is being fired.”
250 crore additional arrears difficult to pay
The company’s decision comes at a time when preparations for the revival of Jet Airways are underway, but on November 18, the new owner Jalan-Kalrock Consortium told the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLT) that they would clear the provident fund and gratuity dues of the employees. 250 crores are unable to pay the additional Rs.
Earlier, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal had directed the Jalan-Kalrock Group, the new owner of Jet Airways, to clear the dues of provident fund and gratuity of the airline’s employees. The consortium cited in its bid to take over Jet Airways that it was not liable to pay more than Rs 475 crore to creditors and all claims had to be settled from that amount.
Ankit Jalan, the board member of the Jalan-Kalrock consortium, said in a statement that the former employees constitute more than 60 percent of Jet Airways’ current workforce. He said that there was tremendous potential for the revival of the Jet Airways brand and there was public support for it. He said that the revival of Jet Airways would provide more employment opportunities, apart from the former employee of the airline, many more people would get jobs.
308 crore loss to the company in the September quarter
At the same time, this month Jet Airways released the results for the quarter that ended in September. In which the company incurred a single net loss of Rs 308.24 crore. The airline had posted a net loss of Rs 305.76 crore in the same period a year ago.
Jalan Frits had emerged as the winning bidder for the alliance airline under the corporate insolvency resolution process. In June last year, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) approved the resolution plan of the consortium. However, Jet Airways is yet to start operations.
