End of Jet Airways strike is a relieve for Air passengers

Unannounced (and probably unplanned) mass leave by the Jet airways pilots left thousands of passengers to face the problem. The pilots and the company management, both, had shown quite resistant before coming to compromise for the settlement. The pilots had done nothing wrong in forming or joining a pilot union but perhaps they do not need one. Pilots in India are highly paid (a large number of them in dollars) because of sudden and exponential growth of the airlines in the country. Pilots are scarce in India and all the companies need to recruit foreign pilots to satisfy the expansion plans.

Jet airways is already an international airline (with a substantial presence in domestic market though) and it has very high level of service standard. It is surprising that the management took too narrow view to block the pilots from forming the union. These pilots are already highly paid what else they can demand even if they have union? Whatever they want can still be discusses in an amicable way with the union. In united Kingdom, unions are helping the companies in reducing the wages and making extra staff redundant. If management genuinely try to do it best then union should not be much worry for the management.

On the other hand, there was no way for the pilots to get sympathy from anyone. They are highly paid so the labour ministry has no incentive to support them. At a time when the aviation industry worldwide is struggling with lower demand and recession every employee is supposed to help their organisation in performing better. But the pilots just went on mass leave. Jet airways has lost almost 200 crore rupees because of disruption of the services and even the biggest lost is the lost of the brand image and customer trust. The company is offering 50% discount on the flights for next five days to attract for customers but any customer who has suffered in last week will think twice before flying again with Jet airways.

Jet airways needs to work harder to regain the lost customer trust. If the customer service is good and flights are punctual then it will be easier to regain the lost trust. It is quite a uphill task and need lot of effort from the management, pilots and the ground staff.