Jet Airways hands over pink slips to 20 employees

Mumbai: Naresh Goyal-promoted Jet Airways has given pink slips to 20 employees, including some senior-level executives, who were working in the airline's crucial in-flight services department, to curtail costs amid the severe cash crunch, an airline source said Friday.

The employees received their job termination notices this month, the source said.

It can be noted that the airline reportedly had recently asked 15 managerial level employees from various departments including engineering, security and sales, to leave the company.

The full service carrier, which is partially-owned by Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, has delayed payment of salaries to its senior management, pilots and engineers due to its deteriorating financial health.

"Jet Airways has been reducing staff since it announced the second consecutive quarterly loss in August. Job cuts stopped in September for a while, but have come back again this month.

The source alleged thet the airline is asking people to leave but in small batches to escape attention.

"Around 20 employees from the in-flight services department including assistant managers, managers, senior manager, among others, have been sacked this month alone. And most of these people are from Mumbai," the source said.

Significantly, a decade back, Jet Airways had announced sacking of 1,900 employees, including 800 unconfirmed and under-probation employees, across all operations. This led to an uproar and chairman Goyal was not only forced to take back all the sacked employees over night, but also had to apologise. PTI