After media reports claimed that grounded air carrier Jet Airways has decided to cut employees’ salaries by up to 50 per cent and sent a significant portion of staff on leave without pay effective December 1, CEO Sanjiv Kapoor on Friday clarified that no staff has been let go.
Kapoor called the news report stating that 60 per cent of current employees including senior management sent on leave without pay for 3 months “100% false information.” In another tweet, the Jet Airways CEO noted that many have not been impacted at all by these temporary measures
Jet Airways employs around 100 cabin crew, junior managers, etc. in the low-level employee category and has an employee strength of 230 reportedly. According to Kapoor, two-thirds of the staff will not be affected by the move and of the remaining one-third, most will be on temporary pay reduction.
“Only a small portion of the total (~10%) will be on temp LWP,” Kapoor said in a tweet, adding that no staff has been let go.
These are all good people who have been working hard to try to do what has never been done before: revive an airline that has gone bankrupt. However, with the ownership transfer timeline slipping due to factors outside our control, some temporary hard decisions had to be taken, Kapoor clarified.
He also backed the Jalan Kalrock consortium noting that the team working to revive Jet was not responsible for the airline running out of cash and suspending operations. They are trying to revive the airline using fresh capital, to give consumers more choices, to create more jobs and bring back old jobs. They deserve our full appreciation, he said.
Jet Airways was planned to the take to the skies again in October this year, however, its relaunch has hit yet another hurdle with the airline’s new owner Jalan-Kalrock consortium telling the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) about its inability to pay additional money to clear provident fund and gratuity dues of around Rs 250 crore to employees.
