Mumbai: It was about 2am on Sunday when the 10-hour parley came to an end in Room 401 on the fourth floor of a nondescript hotel near Mumbai airport. Saroj K. Datta, counting himself lucky to catch a few scattered hours of sleep over the week, signed a memorandum of understanding that would lead to Jet Airways (India) Ltd’s pilots going back to work and restoring the schedule of the country’s largest private airline that had been crippled for the past five days.
“Jet Airways used to earn a revenue of $8 million (around Rs39 crore) a day. This has dropped drastically. The average number of domestic passengers carried has come down to 7,500 from 23,000 passengers a day. The actual losses due to disruptions is not yet estimated,” said Datta, executive director at the carrier.
The deadlock between Jet and the National Aviators Guild, or NAG, the newly formed pilots union at Jet Airways, had resulted in the cancellation of 1,280 flights, both domestic and international. At least 500 of 760 Indian pilots reported sick following the sacking of the two pilots who had led the formation of the union. Two more pilots were fired subsequently.
Photo: Rajanish Kakade/AP. Graphics: Sandeep Bhatnagar/ Mint
Jet agreed to take back all the four flight commanders—Sam Thomas, D. Balaraman, Venkat Vinod and Suhel Jain—and said no action would be taken against those who had stayed away.
In a 10 September report, Sachin Gupta, an analyst with brokerage firm HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) Pvt. Ltd wrote that Jet was losing about Rs19 crore in revenue and that Rs14 crore would be added to FY10’s estimated losses for each additional day of disruption.
Datta said the airline would have normal operations by Monday. To help lure back some of the passengers who weren’t best pleased by the cancellations and delays, Jet announced a 50% cut in economy fares on all domestic flights for bookings made 14-16 September. The limited offer is valid for travel until 18 September.
While Jet’s founder chairman Naresh Goyal, who said this was the most challenging time the airline has faced in its 16-year history, orchestrated negotiations, long-time trusted lieutenant Datta, 69, was his man at the negotiating table. Datta would pop out of the room at Hotel Athithi every 30 minutes through Saturday night to talk to Goyal.
The weekend talks came after an inconclusive 9-hour meeting in New Delhi on Friday.
While Datta was frequently consulting Goyal and other management members, NAG officials were shuttling between Hotel Athithi and nearby Hotel Bawa International, where about 250 Jet pilots were holding out.