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Business News/ Companies / Jet Airways’ executive exits stir fears of layoffs among staff
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Jet Airways’ executive exits stir fears of layoffs among staff

If many employees are sacked from Jet, it would be the second such en masse job loss since Kingfisher Airlines

Jet Airways is laden with debt of nearly `10,895 crore and hasn’t made a profit in recent years. Photo: Abhijit Bhatlekar/MintPremium
Jet Airways is laden with debt of nearly `10,895 crore and hasn’t made a profit in recent years. Photo: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint

New Delhi: A series of top management exits and the outsourcing of some operations at Jet Airways (India) Ltd have sparked concerns of layoffs among employees in some parts of the Naresh Goyal-promoted airline.

On Monday, Jet Airways’ Delhi airport manager Rajiv Malhotra called a meeting of dozens of employees after rumours spread of several impending sackings, said a person with knowledge of the matter who declined to be identified.

Last Thursday the airline’s commercial head Gaurang Shetty had visited the airport with a human resources executive and there were fears among employees that the visit was intended for workforce reduction.

According to the person mentioned above, some airline staffers have been asked to leave. It’s not clear whether Malhotra was able to pacify these employees.

This came just weeks after Jet Airways, which used to handle its own cargo at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, outsourced the job to a Turkish firm, leaving the nearly 46 people in the cargo section concerned about the possibility of losing their jobs.

There are another 50 employees, including managers, duty managers, duty officers and supervisors, who are worried about their jobs if the ramp-and-terminal functions are also outsourced. To be sure, these numbers are small given that Jet had a staff strength of more than 13,000 people as of May last year.

“There are families with kids where the wife is not working...it’s worrying. What will these people do?" the person cited above said, adding, “They are farming out projects, but it should have been explicitly mentioned in those contracts that our people should be adjusted."

“We don’t know who is on the list. They are now saying after the Monday meeting ‘we will try to not fill up positions and therefore meet our workforce reduction targets’. But let’s see," the same person said.

Jet Airways claimed nobody has been fired, but spoke of “normal attrition".

“Jet Airways would like to categorically state that the services of no employee at Delhi have been terminated, apart from normal attrition, which is way below industry levels," the airline said in an email.

“As a part of its ongoing program, to enhance operational efficiencies at Delhi airport, there has been a realignment of the airlines cargo handling operations. Initially there were two different authorized cargo handling agencies working with the airline for domestic and international services, as neither could provide both services together. With effect from April 1st 2014, both these authorised cargo handling agencies have upgraded their capabilities to offer both domestic and international cargo handling under one roof. Jet Airways has taken a decision to realign its domestic and international cargo handling operations under one of the official cargo handlers, on similar lines like other carrier(s) at Delhi. This will deliver significant efficiencies in cargo handling operations and enable Jet Airways to redeploy its cargo manpower in other areas of operations," the airline added.

Jet Airways is laden with debt of nearly 10,895 crore and hasn’t made a profit in recent years. Its headcount has already come down to 12,365 from 13,291 in the year ended March 2013. This staff was being paid nearly 1,544 crore annually in that fiscal—a reduction of 3% over the year-ago period.

Jet Airways has a fleet of 119 aircraft, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, of which the airline says it operates 113 aircraft.

Sackings at Jet Airways have usually been very dramatic. It sacked 1,900 employees when an air show in Hyderabad was under way in 2008, leading to street protests and its staff petitioning Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, who in turn threatened to disrupt Jet flights.

Airline chairman Goyal in a widely televised press conference then said he was taking back the decision, adding, “My conscience doesn’t allow to just look at the economics."

Last year, Jet sold a 24% stake to Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways to raise $900 million, prompting a slew of top-level exits that has left the firm without a CEO, chief commercial officer and chief financial officer. Acting CEO and CFO Ravishankar Gopala-krishnan is expected to exit on 5 May, said a second person with knowledge of the matter who also declined to be named.

Jet is being run by heads of department and chairman Goyal.

Etihad’s spokesman Rupert Hugh-Jones did not respond to an email seeking comments on Sunday.

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Published: 22 Apr 2014, 12:04 AM IST
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