Mumbai, October 15, 2008 –IR Summary/ET - It’s a bad news for the staff of Jet and Kingfisher, Jet Airways have announced here today that they have given notices of separation to 1900 staff of the 13000, they have announced that 850 of the cabin crew would be given the pink slip.

Jet and Kingfisher, along with their acquired airlines, have a combined strength of 19,000 employees, a fleet of 189 aircraft serving 1,009 daily flights, of which 82 are on international routes.

According to industry sources, this was the third time in recent months that Jet had cut its workforce. Some 1,200 employees were given the pink slip after the carrier acquired Air Sahara last year followed by a separation pact with another 700 a couple of months ago.

Kingfisher, too, had initiated similar moves, albeit at a much truncated level.

The tremors brought about by the worst downturn yet in the airline industry were felt on Tuesday itself, hours before the first Jet Airways flight of the day took off. Said a crew member, “About three and a half hours before a flight, the office transport reaches your home to pick you up. In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, hundreds of cabin crew members in Mumbai who were rostered for early morning flights waited in their uniforms to be picked up.’’

When the worried flight attendants started calling up the airline dispatch office they were told they had been derostered till further notice.

Vijay Mallya on Tuesday refused to answer questions on who-whether he or Jet owner Naresh Goyalhad initiated the dialogue leading to their ‘historic’ alliance. He also told TOI he would not like to comment on whether Sharad Pawar or Praful Patel had a role to play. “It might add colour to your copy but I have no desire to land myself in trouble,’’ he said. He did say Kingfisher would save nearly Rs 1,500 cr a year. Full