Amid reports late on Thursday night that Jet Airways and its pilots could be inching towards an agreement after a crucial meeting in New Delhi, both Jet Airways and the pilots declared that they "were not aware as yet" of any breakthrough in talks. "We are not aware of any such development," a Jet Airways spokesperson said late on Thursday.
On a day when Jet Airways cancelled over 230 flights, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the rest of the Cabinet are learnt to have expressed concern over the massive inconvenience being caused to passengers for the past three days on account of the Jet Airways pilots’ strike. Civil aviation minister Praful Patel is also learnt to have briefed the Cabinet on Thursday on the developments relating to the strike and steps taken by the government to minimise inconvenience to passengers.
For much of Thursday the management and pilots dug in their heels. Chaos continued for the third day at Jet Airways counters as 197 domestic and 37 international flights were cancelled.
Jet has been accommodating most of its passengers on flights of other airlines which are gaining a large amount of revenue as a result. In fact, one private charter company has also offered a "flight pool" of private chartered aircraft to stranded passengers wanting to travel urgently, albeit at a hefty price.
On Thursday, Jet Airways ground staff expressed concern, saying the economic losses would lead to the ruin of their families, and appealed to the pilots to return to work. However, the pilots refused to end their mass casual leave till their four sacked colleagues were reinstated in their jobs. The management has so far refused to take back those sacked till the pilots end their strike.
Sources among the pilots claimed that a Union minister had also acted as an interlocutor on Wednesday to mediate between the two warring sides. Meanwhile, Jet Airways executive director Saroj Dutta met the chief labour commissioner in New Delhi while the pilots’ representatives, who were in Mumbai, are expected to meet the chief labour commissioner in New Delhi on Friday.
Pilots who spoke to this newspaper said that they were firm on the formation of their trade union body and that they would not disband it under any circumstances. A lady pilot said, "The working environment has deteriorated sharply in the past two years. Apart from recession and cost-cutting, we have seen that our voices are not being heard by the management even on operational matters. The foreign pilots are treated much better than us. We are feeling extremely insecure and want the trade union body at all costs."
Speaking to reporters in Mumbai, the president of the pilots’ union, Capt. Girish Kaushik, said: "Our stand is clear and that is reinstatement of all the four pilots sacked by Jet Airways. I had a discussion with the chief labour commissioner over the phone and he has assured us that justice would be done." Once the problem is solved the pilots would
resume their jobs immediately, he added.
At a press conference on Thursday, Jet Airways ground staff said they opposed the continuation of the strike and were extremely critical of the pilots. "We want this strike to be withdrawn because it is affecting not only the airline but us as well. The future of families depend on this as the company is losing revenue as well as passengers’ trust," Surender Sharma, a representative of the ground staff, was quoted by news agencies as
saying.
Jagjeet Kaur, another ground staff member, was quoted as saying, "We want this agitation to come to an end today itself. We have been working as a team and now, after two days of the strike, the future of 13,000 non-pilot employees is at stake. Six hundred pilots are withdrawing salaries that amount to 40 per cent of the company’s revenue. But they are forgetting the rest of us." The pilots, however, stated that some ground staff had made such statements on the directions of the management.
A customer-care supervisor was cited as saying that while earlier the airline operated 47 flights out of New Delhi, on Thursday it operated just one. Another loader supervisor, Rajesh Kumar, appealed to the pilots to withdraw the strike. "We are apprehensive about our future ... What will happen to our families," he said.
A Jet Airways duty manager said the ground staff have extended their support to chairman Naresh Goyal, adding that he had been with them during the good times and that they are now with him during this hour of crisis.
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