Jet Airways employees take out silent march at Kolkata airport, appeal to Centre

“One of the biggest fallouts of the Jet Airways crisis is the loss of jobs. It is not only the airline employees who are hit, but others indirectly involved with it will also be affected. With a sudden shutdown by the Jet Airways, airport operators, fuel suppliers and other vendors have lost a big customer. We want government to do something to save the future of the aviation industry,” a senior cabin supervisor, who had been working with Jet for more than nine years, told The Indian Express on conditions of anonymity.

According to the employees, airport operators will lose parking and airport landing charges and other rental revenues from Jet Airways. These charges will have an impact on the pricing of the air tickets in future.

“SpiceJet too had suffered a crisis. The government had issued a notification to fuel agency and airport operators, directing them to defer the payments for two to three months, which helped the airline. It revived eventually with government support. We want a policy change, not something out of mercy. Already the ticket prices have gone up by three to four times. One change in the policy would be enough to ensure no airlines face such crisis. There should be a minimum ‘pricing’ for tickets of each sector and no airline should be allowed to charge below that ‘price’ to keep the market stabilised. It will end the unfair competition,” Sarvesh Gupta, Senior Commander Jet Airways, told The Indian Express.

Amid such crisis, big challenge for the authorities is to ensure that air fares do not surge during the summer holidays.