Jet asks senior employees to take salary cut

Hit by financial downturn, private airline Jet Airways today asked its senior employees, including pilots, to take a cut in wages over a period of next 12 months.

Hit by financial downturn, private airline Jet Airways on Tuesday asked its senior employees, including pilots, to take a cut in wages over a period of next 12 months.

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All the airline employees drawing a gross salary of over Rs 75,000 a month "have been requested for a graduated wage cut over the next 12 months", an airline spokesperson said in New Delhi.

For pilots the slash in their pay packages would be "a combination of wage cut and allowance rationalisation", which would bring their pay package at par with the other employees in the company.

The top management of the company has already taken a voluntary cut of 25 per cent from this month.

The cash-strapped airline industry is faced with high operation costs. High cost jet fuel is cited as one of the reasons for high operational costs. However, the ATF prices have been slashed six times since August, extending some relief to airlines.

The measures taken by Jet to reduce operational costs include rationalisation of routes, reducing frequencies on certain sectors, both international and domestic, and cutting the capacity in line with the demand.

The airline has already effected major cuts in its long haul international flight schedule.

The airline had in October last decided to sack about 1,900 temporary employees which led protests by employees. The company later decided to retain them.

Jet Airways had posted losses to the tune of Rs 384 crore in Q2 of the current financial year.