MUMBAI – Jet Airways’ pilot union, National Aviation Guild (NAG) has asked for timely payments of its pilots along with the interest on their pending dues. Citing the difficulty they are facing in meeting their financial needs on a daily basis, pilots of Jet Airways has sought interventions of DGCA chief, BS Bhullar, and Jet Airways Chief executive Vinay Dube. The Guild wrote to DGCS Chief and Jet Airways chief separately while communicating with them about their problems due to delayed salaries. All the pilots of the Guild and the engineers have been only receiving salary arrears since January month. The president of the Guild, Karan Chopra write two days after the union’s decision to schedule the strike on April 15, which was earlier scheduled to take place on April 1.
Karan Chopra explained the financially deteriorating conditions of families of all the pilots of the union. He said all the pilots and engineers whose salary dues are pending have been facing extreme difficulties in running their houses. Not only are they failing to pay EMI, school and college fees but also it has become quite difficult for them to even manage funds for the medication of their old age parents.
There are 1100 pilots in the Guild whose salaries are delayed out of total 1600 jet pilots. The guild had warned to go on strike from 1 April unless their pending salaries were given and the decision of their future payments is announced. However, the guild changed its stand and decided to call the strike on April 15. Currently, SBI led-consortium lenders own Jet Airways. Jet has been delaying the salary payments of engineers and pilots since August month last year. Earlier, in December, the management decided to clear the dues on 31 March. However, according to Chopra, the management has not listened to the plea of the pilots. That is why the guild has been demanding the management to pay their salary dues with interest but also assure the pilots of their future salaries.
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