Accord eludes Jet talks

 
The conciliatory meeting, which lasted nine hours, discussed the two issues of reinstatement of four pilots — the demand of the agitating pilots — and disbanding of the National Aviators’ Guild (NAG) as insisted by the management.

On the fourth day of the strike on Friday, a total of 242 Jet flights were cancelled till afternoon, out of which 208 were domestic and 34 international.

While the management was ready to take back the pilots — sacked because they had formed a union — the pilots’ representatives were not prepared to dissolve the NAG.
The meeting, chaired by Chief Labour Commissioner S Mukhopadhyay, was attended by Jet Executive Director Saroj Dutta, CEO Hafiz Ali and operations head Capt Mohan from the management side, and NAG president Girish Kaushik and Sam Thomas, one of the sacked pilots, from the union. The talks will continue in Mumbai on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Kaushik said the talks would continue as there were issues which needed to be resolved.

“We hope to arrive at a solution in one or two days,” he added. Mukhopadhyay said the meeting ended without any resolution on the issues raised by the two sides.