Crucial Monday for Jet Airways: Management to meet lenders, pilots to decide carrier’s fate
NEW DELHI: Monday is a crucial day for Jet AirwaysNSE -3.32 % and could well decide whether the troubled airline formally closes down or keeps flying. The management will meet lenders tomorrow with a fresh plan to request for the promised emergency infusion of Rs 1,500 crore. A refusal or further delay in releasing the interim funds could mean immediate and complete grounding of the airline.
Around the same time on Monday, the airline’s pilots and other employees will gather at Jet’s Mumbai headquarters to decide the future course of action.
On Sunday evening, sources said that members of the pilot union, National Aviators’ Guild (NAG), may not fly from 10am on Monday. However, with Jet Airways operating just five ATR planes and a Boeing 737 for some domestic flights, the strike call has no real impact for the airline which till last November had a fleet of 124 aircraft — wide, narrow body and turboprop ATRs — that required over 1,500 pilots. About 1,100 of Jet’s 1,500 Indian pilots are members of the NAG.
