Mumbai:
It's a day since the deadlock between the Jet management and pilots has been broken. But after striking work for five days, causing inconvenience to passengers and a loss of revenue of almost Rs 100 crore to their company, the pilots have still not got what they wanted - a trade union. So what really happened?
Jet's executive director Saroj Datta, a veteran in the aviation industry, is the reason behind it. It was he who brokered the deal with the pilots.
Sources say there were murmurs of a division within the pilot community, especially younger recruits who were worried about a management crackdown.
Also in a shrinking aviation industry in a recession year, job concerns took priority over the formation over a union.
Officially though, the management and pilots buried the hatchet, and made the right noises.
"I apologise for the inconvenience to passengers. Thank management for agreeing to all our demands," said Captain Girish Kaushik.
"Management to also inform Registrar it would withdraw the writ petition and not press contempt petition in the High Court, no action against pilots," said Saroj Datta.
Passengers were inconvenienced and a reputation took another beating. All of this just to form a consultative body to address employee grievances. Perhaps had either side not dug their heels in and taken rigid stances, this could have been avoided.