Airline Industry – One Way Ticket, Destination Unknown
I have been watching the Jet Airways drama unfold with great interest. My son is a pilot -so I can not claim to be a mere observer. Aviation Industry is going through a bad time, dropping passenger demand, high cost of aviation fuel, high taxes, rate-cuts by the competition making airfares uneconomical, etc. are making this profession as high a risk as the Banking Industry.
- 1800 employees of Jet Airways get the sack, in a manner I would not dare to sack my daily help.
- The press goes overboard covering the entire fiasco - of course, there is human interest and there is good copy - so many youthful pretty faces, young faces with anxiety writ on them. I bet the TRP of news channels shot through the roof.
- Commentators going on and on about the "kaali diwali" for Jet employees, tugging at our heart-strings. Hmmm, most of these PYTs would have been working on Diwali, if they had their jobs and not celebrating it - but never mind.
- Raj Thackeray and other political types jumping in and threatening Naresh Goyal with dire consequences
- Naresh Goyal reinstating the sacked employees - swearing on his mother that his motives were pure and he felt sorry for them and also that he did not buckle under any kind of pressure. He also claims that he did not know about this mass scale sacking - WTF?????
Any industry is run for profits and the airline industry, if it is in the red will have to cut costs. I think they were justified in cutting costs, only the manner in which they did it sucked big time. It bothers me that these kids went rushing to MNS to get their jobs back. Now will MNS force these kids to learn Marathi? And will MNS put a clause in the re-instatement stating "Marathi people will get reinstated first"? Sheesh, why give the damn thugs so much power and political mileage? The company was within its rights to lay-off people on probation, and these kids have fed a snake that can only bite them some day.
It is a fact that there is a slump, global economy is facing an unprecedented downturn, the markets are down and big banks have fallen down like nine pins. India is also affected. Companies will have to take tough steps and shed excess weight to stay afloat. It is extremely worrying that the Jet employees have done what they did. Now we know that if some employees are laid off, all they have to do is organize dharna , call the media, cry on TV and tell sob stories of how their dreams were shattered and then approach opportunistic politicians to put pressure on management.
As for Jet, I strongly suspect that this whole episode is a drama to get sops from the Government. After all, they do have an HR department which is highly paid and qualified. They could have laid off employees in smaller chunks and in a more decent manner. If these kids had been laid off due to some kind of a cash crunch, did the situation suddenly improve?
Wonder what is happening behind the scenes.
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"As for Jet, I strongly suspect that this whole episode is a drama to get sops from the Government."- This was the first thought that came into my mind too, after reading the reports!
If the company is in the red, it will have to cut costs. However, I suspect that the total wages of the sacked employess may not come to any great percentage of their total costs. Decrease in aviation fuel taxes is something the govt. could consider.
I am Marathi myself, but have watched the MNS's recent antics with increasing concern. Who knows where this sort of politics will lead us?
I agree Manju, and it worries me, both the behavior of Jet and the increasing clout of MNS
I can hardly be objective about this either because I'm also related to the aviation industry in a second-hand sort of way. But I totally agree with you that the Jet's antics look like a desperate effort to make the govt. fall for their bait. But for an economy that's already down in the dumps, that was one of the worst things they could have done!
Very true D
As another interested parent, I have been keeping track on this one too. There's also a discussion on it on some of the channels.
No one complains or objects when airline pilots - who, afterall, are glorified chauffeurs - are paid the moon in salaries. Maybe what is needed in tough times is salary cuts. Lay offs also have to be accepted in the private sector, but it should be in a decent manner, not by sms or email sent at 2 am, as it apparently was.
As regards the politicians, the lesser said about that sub-rodent class of homosapiens, the better.
I totally agree with you on this Jaspal
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I agree with Jaspal..........salaries have gone way too high and it is time for a reality check. The sad part is that everyone in our country hasnt moved ahead and the social wide deepens and widens. [:(]
Yeah, its because grass-root level reforms are not being done in a sincere way. Money from the top will not percolate to the bottom - the change has to happen at the grass root level
As we learn now, they have dues over Rs. 1000 crores for the fuel they have consumed.
I understand they were "quietly persuaded" to take back the employees or the Oil companies would have turned the screws on tightly.
Post the fiasco, JET is now talking of salary cuts for the top management.
Tough times indeed....let us see how it goes ahead but there will be painful consolidation. Hope your son is not a pilot with JET.
MNS has been smart to hog all credit as they were the first to picket JET head-office and it appears that their protests and threats worked. However, the backroom arm twisting worked and not MNS protests.
Today's news is that oil companies have given airlines sops - though the prices of tickets wont go down. A lot ails the airline industry - I hope some reforms do take place. My son has yet to join the work force. I realise that this was a huge drama, but MNS hogged the credit. I hate the political mileage the party got