1,900 pink slips at Jet, red and saffron fly into political chance

The much-feared shakeout in the Indian aviation industry began to hit home on Wednesday as hundreds of employees of leading private airline Jet Airways took to the streets in protest after they were fired overnight, a move the company said was in the greater interest of regaining viability and security its economic health.

While the company said it had “released” 800 flight attendants recruited recently for Jet’s planned expansion programme, it added another 1,100 employees to that list later in the day and said they would include probationary and unconfirmed personnel in other areas including cockpit crew and management personnel.

Aviation industry sources said that this seemed like the beginning of a bloodletting in the sector and other airlines, including Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines which joined hands with Jet only two days ago to share facilities and cut costs, could follow suit. Kingfisher last month sacked 300 employees, many of them from Air Deccan with which it merged earlier this year.

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