The second day of the Jet Airways pilot protest saw the Bombay High Court issuing a contempt notice to pilots, fares soar and the airline industry putting its support behind the airline's management by taking up the slack of the 250 flights (above 500 domestic and international) that were grounded today after more than 400 pilots took mass sick leave for the second day in protest against two pilots sacked last month and three yesterday.
A release from the airline said the the Bombay High Court issued a notice to the National Aviator’s Guild (NAG) and its office bearers and made the matter returnable on September 14.
Meanwhile, the pilots of the NAG, which has 650 members out of Jet’s 704 pilots (another 164 are expats and are not part of this protest), also declared that they were willing to talk to the management to resolve the issue. “Once Mr Goyal meets us, I am sure he will be able to understand our problems,” NAG joint secretary Captain Sam Thomas told reporters.
| HIGH FLIERS Peak time ticket rates from Delhi to Bangalore | ||
| Airline | Price earlier | Price now |
| Kingfisher | 6,000 | 12,500 |
| Go Air | 3,000 | 4,500 |
| Air India | 6,000 | 6,000 |
| SpiceJet | 3,179 | NA |
| IndiGo | 3,179 | NA |
| Amount in Rs NA: Tickets not available | ||
But late night talks between the Jet management and pilots ended in a stalemate.
In a day of hectic developments, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal met Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, and also worked out a plan to reduce inconvenience to passengers.
“On normal days, we fly 23,000 passengers. As of today we have 14,000 passengers booked, of which 50 per cent would be boarded on JetLite and Jet Airways flights and the rest were accommodated with other airlines,” said Hamid Ali chief operating officer of Jet Airways, which is India’s largest airline.
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Airlines like Air India, Kingfisher, IndiGo and SpiceJet are picking up Jet passengers from grounded flights and the airline has also worked out inter-airline payment adjustments so that passengers do not have to pay extra for flights redirected to other airlines.
Fares available on the net, however, shot up 50 to 100 per cent during peak hours owing to the sudden reduction of capacity due to cancelled flights.
“Except for Air India, low-cost carriers have raised fares 50 per cent and full-service carriers by around 100 per cent,” confirmed Mohit Srivastava, head of online sales, MakemyTrip.com, an online portal.
On a Delhi-Bangalore route, Kingfisher normally charges Rs 6,000 (one way). The fare today rose to Rs 12,500. Low-cost carriers have upped Delhi-Bangalore ticket prices from Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,500, according to makemytrip data (see table).
Sources in Kingfisher admitted that the Vijay Mallya-owned airline was getting 100 per cent passenger load factor (PLF) in the business class currently instead of the average of 50 per cent. Air India saw passenger load factor increase from 60 per cent to 74 per cent today.
Significantly, both full-service and low-cost carriers have strongly supported Goyal.
“We cannot tolerate labour terrorism by employees who get salaries above Rs 4 lakh a month,” said a senior executive of a leading private airline, adding, “Also, at a time of recession for the industry we are concerned that the pilots’ attitude might spread to other airlines too. At this moment everyone has to make sacrifices.”
“Goyal has not budged an inch and that is the right way. We fully support his moves. I don’t see the pilots getting support from any other employees who distrust them,” added a CEO of a low-cost carrier.
NAG’s Thomas, however, made it clear that the mass leave move will continue till their demands of reinstating all the pilots sacked is met.
Jet Airways has a 26.3 per cent — 18.9 per cent of Jet Airways and 7.4 per cent of JetLite — share of the domestic passenger market that carries 100,000 passengers a day.