The Jet Airways-pilots’ standoff ended in the early hours of Sunday, with compromises made on both sides. The good news for passengers is that Jet is fully set to fly again. Sudheer Raghavan, chief operational officer, Jet Airways, said the airline had resumed all international flights by Sunday morning and he was expecting all domestic routes to be operational by Monday.
Sources said the deadlock was broken only after the Jet management softened its earlier stance by taking back the four sacked pilots. Investor pressure played its part as well, as the airline could not afford any more losses. Jet is in the process of raising Rs2,000 crore from investors to sustain its operations.
But what happens to the pilots’ union, the National Aviation Guild (NAG), is not clear.
Captain Girish Kaushik, NAG president, said: “The NAG is still alive. We have not agreed to disband it. The registrar of trusts has sent us a show-cause notice. We want the law of the land to decide (the fate of the NAG).”
The meeting between Jet’s management and the pilots began on Saturday evening and continued beyond midnight. “If we had stood our ground for another two days, the management would have buckled under pressure but that is not what we wanted. The passengers were suffering and the airline was making huge losses. We had to consider that. Since the management extended a friendly hand, we offered ours as well,” said a pilot on condition of anonymity.
Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam was apparently instrumental in breaking the ice by setting the tone for a discussion. That done, the two sides got down to preparing the settlement draft, which took two days to finalise.
Jet chairman Naresh Goyal’s wife had also intervened. Disturbed by how the face-off between the Jet management and the pilots’ union, the National Aviation Guild (NAG), was denting her husband’s and the airline’s reputation, Anita Goyal had called the pilots from London in the early stages of the standoff. Minal Naik, premium class manager at the airline, had mediated the call.
“We made a promise to her (Anita Goyal) that we will make sure no harm is done to either. From that day onwards, we only praised the airline and Mr Goyal. In all our addresses to the media, we only focused on our demands,” said a member of the NAG. He said the stalemate continued for five days because Goyal had taken a very tough stance and was refusing to budge. “He (Goyal) would say ‘let’s have an amicable settlement’, but then would ask us to fulfil conditions not acceptable to us.”
The deal brokered between the two parties includes withdrawal of a contempt petition filed by Jet against the pilots in the Bombay high court. The airline has assured the pilots that it would not initiate any disciplinary action against those who called in sick for five days to protest against the sacking to two pilots.
The Jet management and the pilots will also meet the regional labour commissioner AK Agarwal on Monday to apprise him about the settlement. On July 31, the two parties had tried to resolve their differences through a conciliation meeting but had failed.
