All businessmen are opportunists, Goyal is no exception. With yields not improving in spite of increasing load factors cost cutting becomes vital. With the dollar soaring, expat pilots are now burning a hole in his pocket. Right time to hack with the sword, since he has a ready pool of sacked, unemployed & dissatisfied Indian rated pilots to draw from.
In one stroke he has also put paid to the disparity between ATR & Ng pilots in his company's fleets. With ATR commanders making a lakh more a month, the 737 commanders were a disgruntled lot and wanted parity in pay. Instead, the company has pruned ATR pay packets to match Boeing jockeys. Now that there are many pilots available in the open market from KF & AI. he expects them to take it lying down, and this leaves the 737 pilots with no pay parity issue, expect with their wide-body counterparts. Shri Goyal, the smart cookie has already killed 2 birds with one stone.
There is also a move to cut upgrade QRs for F/Os, so more pilots are available for the left hand seat from within.
And with the ongoing strike at AI & KFs financial mess leading to fleet reduction, Jet is soaring on the international front too. Expect its next quarter financial results to improve. There is also news of it placing orders for 100 new narrow body aircraft this fiscal, though its still not clear in what permutation/combination these would be.
Whats next on the Goyal menu??
Aeronotix
