Jet Airways has expressed its inability to clear salary dues of its pilots, saying it can pay only the balance 87.50 per cent of December pay, amid the looming threat of pilots going on strike from April 1.
Meanwhile, the airline’s pilots body, the National Aviators Guild (NAG), has called an ‘open house’ of its members in New Delhi and Mumbai on Sunday. The pilots, who along with engineers and senior staff have not been paid for almost four months now, have said they will not fly from April if dues were not cleared and sought a roadmap on future payment March 31.
“The board of directors and the management team are working as fast as possible to implement the resolution plan agreed with the consortium of lenders to quickly restore the much-needed stability to our operations and build a sustainable future for the airline.
“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,” Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube wrote to pilots on Saturday.
Last week, an SBI-led consortium of lenders became the owner of Jet Airways after its founder-chairman Naresh Goyal along with his wife Anita stepped down from the board under a debt-rejig plan. Goyal also quit the chairman’s post.
Dube said, “We realise that this remittance does not lift the financial hardship that each of you are facing... we continue to work on additional funding.”