New Delhi: Two members of the cabin crew—one male and one female—slugged it out with the pilot and co-pilot at 30,000 feet above sea level on Saturday.
The cabin-vs-cockpit tiff originated on the ground in Sharjah itself and then turned into a full-blown fight once IC 884 took off soon after midnight.
The cabin crew alleged that pilots harassed a 24-year-old female colleague who later filed a molestation complaint against them with the cops after the flight landed in Delhi.
The pilots, on the other hand, accused a male flight purser of misconduct that seriously compromised flight safety, and said the accusation of molestation aimed to protect the complainant’s purser friend—who has a commercial pilot licence (CPL)—from facing action.
Kolkata: For Jet, the 5-day strenuous standoff ended on Sunday morning with over 500 “sick” pilots reporting back to work.
However, to make up for the losses and get back customers, Jet Airways is offering tickets at 50% reduced price on full economy fares for bookings made on Monday and Tuesday for travel until September 18th.
Jet’s executive director Saroj K Dutta announced to the media the end of impasse and restoration of all services. But most flights could not resume due to problems in restoring, last minute glitches and drastic drop in bookings on the domestic circuit.
Jet had taken immediate steps to restore all international flights by Sunday, Sudhir Rahgavan, chief commercial officer, said. All domestic flights are expected to resume by Tuesday.
“We generally have a revenue of Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million) a day and since the strike, passengers numbers dropped from 23,000 a day to 14,000 and then to 7,000. You can well imagine the loss,” said Dutta.
“There has been a misunderstanding with management which has been solved. We will restore our airline’s glory,” said Captain Girish Kaushik, president of the guild.
The 3 day ongoing conflict between Jet Airways with its pilots posing serious trouble for the carrier and the plan to raise $400 million to buy new aircrafts seems to be in jeopardy.
Kapil Kaul, chief executive officer of the Indian unit of Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation said, “The last thing investors want to see when the airline’s trying to raise funds is a crisis like this. This is a wildfire and they need to put out as soon as possible.”
Fall in the stock market price of nation’s second largest airlines from as much as 4.5 percent to 251 rupees, losing customers at a rapid speed, labor disputes all are adding up to Chairman Naresh Goyal’s trouble regarding the fund raising plan.
Domestic bookings for Jet came down to 14,000 a day, almost by 39% percent and international bookings saw a downfall of about 9.5 percent accounting to 9,500 a day.
Total cancellations of Jet flights seems to be at an alarming rate with 484 flights this week, including 90 flights cancelled today. The protest by the pilots seems to be continuing causing serious inconvenience to the passengers.
More than 400 pilots went on sick leave demanding the employer takes back 4 of their colleagues who were fired earlier. On Sept. 8, the airline asked a court to force the pilots to return to work.
“Jet Airways is endeavoring to make alternate arrangements on other airlines wherever possible and our airport teams will assist its guests to the fullest extent,” Jet Air said.
Mumbai: The two pilots, S Jha and Prakash Bapat of Air India Mumbai-Riyadh flight with 213 passengers caught fire just before take-off have been kept away from duty pending enquiry.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation also launched an investigation. AI, however, did not deroster its cabin crew, which is also part of the on-going enquiry.
An AI spokesperson said, that the cabin crew was questioned by DGCA officials on Saturday morning.
He said, “It is a standard operating procedure when an incident takes place involving an aircraft to deroster those involved so that they can be available to give their statements.”
Boeing officials will fly in from the United States to look into the causes for the fire. Passengers on board escaped unhurt.
The airline had already derostered the aircraft maintenance engineer who was supervising the flight departure, after the left engine of the Boeing-747 caught fire seconds after fuel was seen dripping from one of its wings on Friday morning.
DGCA officials said a preliminary investigation report would be ready on Monday. Responding to reports which said that the cabin crew evacuated passengers from the exit.
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