Jet to retire all expat pilots by fiscal-end

Faced with huge losses in the first quarter, the country’s largest private carrier by market value, Jet Airways will complete the process of replacing expat pilots with Indian pilots by the end of the current fiscal.
Last November, Jet had discontinued the service of 32 foreign pilots. The company has a total of 1,100 pilots out of which 250 are expats.
The contracts of nearly three dozen expat pilots will expire in October while some more will run out in December with the rest by March next year. The objective of the exercise is to control costs.
Foreign pilots charge a huge salary premium over Indian pilots. A foreign pilot, on an average, is paid a monthly salary of Rs 5 lakh plus an accommodation allowance of Rs 2 lakh. Indian pilots, on the other hand, draw around Rs 3.6 lakh a month. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation had earlier said all domestic airlines should have only Indian pilots by July 2010.
Jet has already reduced capacity by 20% on domestic routes and by half on international routes in the last two quarters. Capacity is a measure determined by number of operational aircraft and seats occupied in an airline. Analysts say Jet will not need too many pilots after capacities have been reduced. “Laying off foreign pilots will help the company in controlling costs and stay afloat,” said an analyst with a domestic brokerage firm.
Earlier, the airline has issued termination notices to 43 cabin crew on probation. It has also terminated contracts of 110 employees, of which 60 had superannuated and the rest were probationary cabin crew staff.
21/07/09 Mithun Roy/Economic Times