Prince Mathews Thomas Moneycontrol News
With its fleet down to less than 35 aircraft, Jet Airways has offered a six-month sabbatical to its pilots.
In a communication on April 2, the airline shared a new roster for its crew on Boeing 737 aircraft. "Due to changes in operational requirement, B737 flight crew will be assigned on a 5-day working and 3-days off roster from April 11 to April 26," the airline said.
"Additionally, flight crew seeking a long break/sabbatical between April-September 2019 may put in their requests to the fleet office for approval," it added.
The communication comes two days after pilots postponed strike to April 15, after the December salary dues were cleared by the company. They had earlier threatened to go on a strike from April 1, if their salaries were not paid. However, the pilots are still to get salaries for January, February and March.
Later on April 2 in a filing to the exchanges, Jet said that 15 more aircraft have been grounded.
"Further to our letter dated 22 March, 2019, we now write to inform you that an additional 15 aircraft have been grounded due to non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors under their respective lease agreements. As mentioned earlier, the company is actively engaged with all its aircraft lessors and regularly provides them with updates on the efforts undertaken by the Company to improve its liquidity. Aircraft lessors have been supportive of the company's efforts in this regard," Jet said in a statement.
The strike threat underlined that Jet Airways was far from being out of turbulence, even as its lenders led by State Bank of India, put together a rescue package. But the promised emergency funding of Rs 1,500 crore from the banks, is yet to come.
Similar to its latest communication, Jet Airways had in March asked its expat pilots to go on a leave of absence. The airline had written to the expat pilots, asking them to go on a leave of absence from April 1, and until further notice. During this period, the pilots don't get any monetary benefits.
Jet Airways now has a little over 30 aircraft in its fleet, down from 119 planes. More aircraft were grounded after default on payments to lessors.
At the same time, the airline plans to bring back some of these grounded planes back to service over the next two months. But that would depend on the banks injecting funds.
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