Stung by strong opposition from political parties and demonstrations by the sacked employees, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal made a volte face today by announcing that he would reinstate all the 800 employees who were retrenched on Wednesday.
The decision comes just a day after the carrier not only sacked 800 non-confirmed employees, which included cabin crew and ground staff, but said it would follow up with the sacking of another 1,100 more employees as part of its restructuring process to reduce cost.
In a late night press conference today Goyal said: "All the employees are like family members to me and I am the head of that family. The decision to retrench was taken by the management considering economic realities. But as the head of the family my conscience does not allow me to be dictated by only economics and money. So the employees will start working from tomorrow as usual."
He did not spell out details as to whether they would be asked to go in for a salary cut.
Jet Airways and JetLite (formerly Air Sahara, which Jet acquired last year) have 12,000 employees and the cuts announced were expected to eliminate nearly 15 per cent of the airline's staff strength. The decision came close on the heels of Jet signing up a strategic alliance with Kingfisher to reduce costs.
Goyal said he had not been forced to change his decision because of pressure from his management or from outside. He said that he would sit with the employees and find ways to improve efficiency of the airline.
Goyal said he “does not take part in the day-to-day decisions taken by the company's executives”.
Goyal was facing flak from political parties, which criticised his harsh decision, which was taken without any warning. The Maharashtra Nav Nirman Sena had threatened to prevent all Jet flights from landing in Mumbai. The party’s brass and the top management of the airline had a closed-door meeting today, where a request was made to reinstate the retrenched workers.