Jet Airways assures employees of resolving problems in a month's time after staff union meets management

The management of crisis-hit Jet Airways has reportedly assured its ground staff of sorting out their problems in a month’s time after members of the airline employees’ association met its senior officials, said a media report.

Taking up the uncertainty at the airline, senior members of All India Jet Airways Officer and Staff Association, representing its ground staff, security and cargo workers held a three-hour meeting with top Jet Airways management at its Mumbai headquarters on Tuesday, said a report in Mint.

Association president and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) lawmaker Kiran Pawaskar claimed that Jet Airways management assured them of resolving the issues within a month, the report said.

In December last year, Jet Airways had to cancel at least 14 flights after some pilots reported “sick” over their unpaid salaries, reported PTI.

The loss-making Jet Airways has been defaulting on the payment of salaries to its senior management, pilots and engineers since August due to a severe cash crunch.

But Jet Airways had said that the flights were cancelled over an “unforeseen operational circumstance” and not because of the protest by pilots.

In September last year, the pilots of the cash-strapped airline had warned the management of “non-cooperation" over default on payments.

Jet Airways had proposed an up to 25 percent cut in salaries in June 2018 but was forced to defer the plan following opposition from the pilots’ union and engineers.

Meanwhile, Jet Airways is planning to borrow Rs 225 crore from State Bank of India after pledging its fixed deposits worth Rs 1,500 crore with various banks, said a report in Mint.

Jet Airways decided to take loan through pledging fixed deposits rather than redeem them because the deposits continue to earn a higher interest than what the troubled airline has to pay to the SBI, a person was quoted as saying in the report.

— With inputs from PTI