The lenders had agreed to give just enough funds to keep five Jet Airways aircraft operational but this was not accepted by the airline management.

“The lenders declined to give ₹400 crore but they offered to give about ₹2-3 crore on a daily basis to keep five aircraft operational. They had offered even to pay the salaries of the staff required to keep the five aircraft in operation. But this was not accepted by the management as it would have been difficult to implement,”said a source from the company.

“The management would have found it difficult to pick the staff to operate the five aircraft when thousands are waiting to get paid their salary dues,” the source added.

Employees of Jet Airways said that they were disappointed with the banks’ decision to not extend emergency funding. “The company decided to suspend operations due to no working capital. It’s disappointing that it’s a bank-led resolution plan, and yet, SBI has not transferred the much-needed funds,” said Captain Parikshit Joshi, Senior Commander on Boeing 737 and a NAG committee member.

Read: Anger and shock among employees as Jet gets grounded

NAG is the Jet pilots association which has been spearheading the fight for salary payments. The pilots have not been paid since January and are now looking to file a plea with NCLT to recover their dues.

Meanwhile Vinay Dube, CEO of Jet Airways, told the employees that he did not have answers to many of the questions even as the lenders are in the midst of finding a new investor to run the airline. “We must also be realistic that the sales process will take some time and will throw up several more challenges for us, many of which we don’t have the answers to, today. For example, we don’t have an answer today to the very important question of “what happens to us employees during the sale process,” Dube said.

Related Topics