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Shubhra Tandon
Varada Bhat

Mumbai, May 14 Jet Airways has issued termination letters to a section of the 1,900 employees who were shown the door last October and quickly reinstated in a dramatic turn of events.

Sources said the airline had kicked off the termination process on April 30 in a phased manner. “Each day saw 30-60 employees exiting in batches,” said an airline cabin crew, requesting anonymity.

Jet Airways will pay these employees a month’s pay, in the Rs 30,000-35,000 range, and also return the security deposits specified under the service contract bond. This works out to an additional Rs 1.5 lakh.

Sources say the layoffs are likely to continue till Saturday as the cabin crew numbering 3,500 has been given a roster only till May 15. “Usually the crew is given a roster for the entire month,” they added. A spokesperson for Jet said, “The roster is being issued today (May 14).”

The story doing the rounds is that the sacked employees who were reinstated last year signed an agreement, which apparently specified that they could not protest or take legal action against the company if their services were terminated due to poor financial health of the airline. This has not been officially confirmed by the airline.

The Jet spokesperson said in an email response, “The airline has issued notices of termination to some cabin crew on probation in accordance with the terms of their contracts and in compliance with the law.”

She added that under the present global economic environment, Jet had undertaken additional measures to streamline costs and improve its financial health. The company has, incidentally, referred these “displaced employees” to an in-house placement cell that will help them locate openings in other airlines.

The move comes at a time when election results are to be announced on Saturday and a new Government will soon be in place.

Aviation ministry sources say that little can be done now (by the Government) on the issue of job losses. It was supposed to have played a role during the high voltage drama last October, but this has not been confirmed.

The bottomline is that the aviation industry is under serious pressure and, as an expert put it, “If the Government could not provide help to the industry, which is languishing, how can it tell companies not to trim staff?”

In March, the airline had deputed some of its cabin crew on airport duty by turns for two weeks to a month, making use of its surplus cabin crew.

Earlier this month, Jet had announced closure of its overseas crew bases in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Bangkok. Around 120 crew members based in these countries were issued termination letters in accordance with their contracts.

As part of the rationalisation process, the company has officially stated that it has terminated contracts of 110 employees, of which 60 had superannuated and the rest were probationary cabin crew staff.

During the last retrenchment exercise in October industry experts said that Jet Airways has an employee-to-aircraft ratio of 85:1 unlike other private airlines, which generally is at a 20:1 ratio.

Jet Airways and JetLite have a combined employee strength of 12,000.

More Stories on : Airlines | Human Resources | Jet Airways (India) Ltd

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