Staff-related issues have come back to haunt Jet Airways, India?s largest private sector carrier. The airline, which posted a net loss of Rs 961 crore for FY09, has been forced to go through a restructuring exercise and is believed to have fired trainee technical officers as a part of its restructuring programme to improve profitability. The airline has been suffering from declining occupancy and rising operation costs for the last several months.

Over 40 trainee technicians, who were given the marching orders by the private carrier, staged a protest outside the airline?s office at Andheri in Mumbai on Monday with a demand to be reinstated by the carrier.

A delegation of Raj Thackeray?s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) activists is believed to have taken up the issue and are holding a meeting with Jet Airways? management, telling the company that these employees be taken back.

Jet has an annual salary bill of over Rs 1,200 crore and is making efforts to bring down employee cost. A technician who has been sacked told FE that the airline will revert to the retrenched staff after three days.

Despite repeated attempts, a Jet spokesperson did not respond to calls and emails on the issue. It is learnt that the carrier has sacked nearly 150 trainee technicians pan India, but there was no confirmation on this from the airline.

The carrier has played it safe by stating that the employees had been laid off in accordance with their contracts. Last year, Jet Airways had terminated services of 850 staff, but was forced to re-instate them after a public outcry.

However, later Jet made attempts to switch to leaner business models by axing temporary and trainee staff.

Last year, Jet also responded to the increasingly uncertain economic climate by launching an aggressive cost cutting programme, which involved a range of measures which include rationalisation of its route network, and reducing its frequency and capacity in line with the slowing demand.

Jet has also forged an alliance with arch rival Kingfisher Airlines to cut costs through code-sharing and combining ticketing and ground services, which is on track at the moment.