The standoff between Jet Airways and its pilots owing allegiance to the newly formed National Aviators Guild (NAG) entered the second day with the number of pilots reporting sick going up to 432 on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, 360 pilots went on mass sick leave, grounding 186 flights and leaving over 13,000 passengers stranded. Jet said it had cancelled over 200 flights on Wednesday.
The pilots are protesting against the ouster of two colleagues.
Addressing journalists, Captain Hamid Ali, chief operating officer, Jet, said 432 out of the 760 pilots reported sick.
Sudheer Raghavan, chief financial officer, said domestic bookings had come down to 14,000 a day from the normal 23,000.
“We can carry about half of them on our Jet and JetLite aircraft. For international operations, we normally have around 10,500 bookings per day which is now down to 9,500. We can carry a substantial number and the rest can be accommodated in other airlines.”
PTI reports:
A meeting between Jet Chairman Naresh Goyal and the NAG failed to take place. However, backchannel talks were reportedly on to find ways to end the stalemate.
Mr. Goyal, who met Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, did not rule out hiring foreign pilots if it came to that.