Jet crisis leaves staff with little to pay kids’ fees, loans
Quitting No Option As Other Airlines Either Not Hiring Or Offering Half Pay
Saurabh Sinha & Manju V TNN
16.04.2019
March 16, 2019, is a day Jet Airways’ Captain Amit Rai* isn’t going to forget soon. That morning, he received a message posted by an aircraft maintenance engineer (AME) on a WhatsApp group seeking financial help for his son who was being treated in a Delhi hospital for aplastic anemia, a condition in which the human body stops producing enough new blood cells.
“Request has been made to HR (to) release my three months’ pending salary. It is still pending. The suggested treatment is bone marrow transplant which (will) cost over ₹25 lakh. I am left with no choice (but) to make an appeal to all my colleagues to help in this dire hour,” read the WhatsApp from the AME, who had exhausted his entitlement for hospitalization expenses. But even as the cash-strapped management and pilots scrambled to arrange funds, the young boy passed away.
While passenger woes have been highlighted in the media, the impact of the nearcollapse of a big company that employs over 14,000 people goes much deeper. Since January, Jet has deferred pay cheques for those in the highincome bracket — pilots, AMEs and senior management — but in March, salaries dried up for everyone.
Sukhbir Singh, 45, who works as Jet’s loader supervisor at Delhi airport, says his finances are already fraying. His daughter has just given her Class 12 exam, and son is now in Class 10. “I had to pay for my daughter’s coaching classes so that she could get admission in law but there’s not enough to pay my son’s school fees. I have requested them to give me time. Hope they see what our condition is,” said Singh, who earns ₹28,000-38,000 a month as loader.
Even quitting isn’t an option since the sudden surge of people looking for jobs has sent salaries plummeting. “Those who went to other airlines were offered half their current salary,” said Singh.
Besides employees on the roll, Jet also employs 6,000 plus contract workers. They may be the worst hit, says Deepak Gaikwad, managing director, Target Hospitality, which supplies 1,200 contract workers to Jet at five airports, including Mumbai. “Workers from remote villages join us as an airline job is considered prestigious,’’ he said. They live in slums around the airports in Sahar, Kurla, Andheri and earn around ₹14,000 a month.
Among those who are fretting over their missing pay checks and outstanding EMIs are pilots who joined Jet Airways in the past two years. Under the Jet cadet program launched in June 2017, a student pays ₹88 lakh to the airline to earn a Commercial Pilot License and then be trained to fly a Boeing 737.
(*Name changed on request)
IN A TIGHT SPOT: Jet Airways pilots, engineers and cabin crew gathered outside the airline office in Siroya Centre at Andheri in Mumbai and made a plea to SBI to release the promised funds
Quitting No Option As Other Airlines Either Not Hiring Or Offering Half Pay
Saurabh Sinha & Manju V TNN
16.04.2019
March 16, 2019, is a day Jet Airways’ Captain Amit Rai* isn’t going to forget soon. That morning, he received a message posted by an aircraft maintenance engineer (AME) on a WhatsApp group seeking financial help for his son who was being treated in a Delhi hospital for aplastic anemia, a condition in which the human body stops producing enough new blood cells.
“Request has been made to HR (to) release my three months’ pending salary. It is still pending. The suggested treatment is bone marrow transplant which (will) cost over ₹25 lakh. I am left with no choice (but) to make an appeal to all my colleagues to help in this dire hour,” read the WhatsApp from the AME, who had exhausted his entitlement for hospitalization expenses. But even as the cash-strapped management and pilots scrambled to arrange funds, the young boy passed away.
While passenger woes have been highlighted in the media, the impact of the nearcollapse of a big company that employs over 14,000 people goes much deeper. Since January, Jet has deferred pay cheques for those in the highincome bracket — pilots, AMEs and senior management — but in March, salaries dried up for everyone.
Sukhbir Singh, 45, who works as Jet’s loader supervisor at Delhi airport, says his finances are already fraying. His daughter has just given her Class 12 exam, and son is now in Class 10. “I had to pay for my daughter’s coaching classes so that she could get admission in law but there’s not enough to pay my son’s school fees. I have requested them to give me time. Hope they see what our condition is,” said Singh, who earns ₹28,000-38,000 a month as loader.
Even quitting isn’t an option since the sudden surge of people looking for jobs has sent salaries plummeting. “Those who went to other airlines were offered half their current salary,” said Singh.
Besides employees on the roll, Jet also employs 6,000 plus contract workers. They may be the worst hit, says Deepak Gaikwad, managing director, Target Hospitality, which supplies 1,200 contract workers to Jet at five airports, including Mumbai. “Workers from remote villages join us as an airline job is considered prestigious,’’ he said. They live in slums around the airports in Sahar, Kurla, Andheri and earn around ₹14,000 a month.
Among those who are fretting over their missing pay checks and outstanding EMIs are pilots who joined Jet Airways in the past two years. Under the Jet cadet program launched in June 2017, a student pays ₹88 lakh to the airline to earn a Commercial Pilot License and then be trained to fly a Boeing 737.
(*Name changed on request)
IN A TIGHT SPOT: Jet Airways pilots, engineers and cabin crew gathered outside the airline office in Siroya Centre at Andheri in Mumbai and made a plea to SBI to release the promised funds
No comments:
Post a Comment