Jet Airways mgmt-pilots meeting on salary arrears likely tomorrow

Mumbai, Aug 19: The Jet Airways management is likely to hold talks with its pilots, who have threatened to launch an agitation over non-payment of salary arrears of about Rs 100 crore, tomorrow.

"The management will meet the pilots who have been demanding payment of arrears since a long time and have warned of agitation in the eventuality of the company not heeding their demand," airline sources told PTI.

The meeting is scheduled to take place around noon at the airline's headquarters here, sources said, adding Jet Airways chief executive-designate Cramer Ball is expected to be present. Jet Airways, in which the Gulf carrier Etihad is a strategic partner with 24 per cent stake, has 1,100 pilots on its rolls.

Its pilots had struck work for several weeks in 2009 against sacking of two of their colleagues for forming a union. Of the 1,100 pilots on the rolls, as many as 600 are commanders and the rest first officers.

According to pilots, the company owes around Rs 15 lakh to each commander and Rs 7 lakh to each co-pilot in arrears. The arrears are for FY11 and FY12, while the airline has already cleared those for FY13, according to pilots.

On August 10, the airline's pilots had warned the management of agitation if it failed to come up with a concrete plan on payment of arrears by August 20. Though the Naresh Goyal-promoted carrier had denied having received any ultimatum from its pilots, it had said in a statement that the management was willing to meet the pilots on August 20 and discuss "all matters".

PTI