Jet Airlines seeks more time to pay pilots' salary arrears

Jet Airways management assured its pilots of legal help today to deal with DGCA notices to them, even as it sought more time to pay salary arrears worth Rs 100 crore, sources said here today. The assurance to pilots came after a meeting between the two sides at the airline's headquarters here today, airline sources told PTI today evening.

"At the meeting, we requested the management to support us on various notices served to our colleagues by the aviation regulator. The management responded positively to our request," sources said. The management also said that it would "reconsider" internal warning letters to a dozen odd pilots, which were served to them for various counts in the recent past, sources added.

It may be mentioned here that earlier this month, the DGCA had cracked down on nearly 140 Jet Airways pilots for continuing to fly without clearing mandatory bi-annual exams and issued show-cause notices to the airline, questioning its pilot training programme. Notices were issued to pilots, as also Jet's Chief Operating Officer and Training Chief, on the basis of an audit of its training programme by a three-member DGCA team.

The meeting, which lasted for nearly six hours, was attended by the Jet Airways Group Chief Executive Hameed Ali, Chief Executive (Designate) Cramer Ball, Senior Vice President for Flight Operations Nikihil Ved and Senior Vice President for Human Resources Samar Srivastava from the management side, while five members from the National Aviators' Guild represented the pilots.

Sources also said that the management sought more time to clear salary arrears of pilots amounting to Rs 100 crore, since it is working on modalities of the payout. "The management said that it will pay the arrears but needs some more time to work out modalities," sources said.