Mumbai/New Delhi:
After five days of an impasse between the Jet management and the pilots, the crisis is over.
The grounded planes of Jet airways will take-off again. Jet management on Sunday said all was well with the management and the pilots. But in the five days of strike, the company has lost an estimated Rs 200 crore.
PTI adds: Jet Airways' operations on Sunday limped back towards normalcy with about 100 of the nearly 500 agitating pilots reporting for work across the country after an end to their five-day-long stir.
As many as 140 flights, including 10 international ones, remained cancelled on Sunday, a company spokesperson said, noting that 98 pilots had reported fit for work this morning.
The services were expected to be restored by Tuesday, Jet Chief Commercial Officer Sudhir Raghavan told reporters in Mumbai.
He said while the operations involving foreign destinations had resumed on Sunday, flights on the domestic routes were expected to be normal in about two days.
Nearly 500 pilots, who reported "sick" for the last five days, decided to resume their duties after a nine-hour-long meeting with the airlines management in Mumbai on Saturday night.
During the marathon meeting, which ended at around 0230 hrs on early Sunday, the airline management and the agitators reached a settlement under which the four sacked pilots will be reinstated and a consultative group made up of the two sides formed to resolve all issues.
The airlines has started booking of seats for Sunday's flights since this morning, as passengers trickled in following an end to stir.
Jet's ticketing counter at Delhi's IGI airport, which wore a deserted look for the last five days, saw some anxious passengers enquiring about the status of flights.
The airlines also tried to bring in some normalcy by combining Mumbai-Dubai and Dubai-Mumbai flights on international sectors.
The airline also merged some flights on Mumbai-Delhi, Mumbai-Vadodara-Ahmedabad, Bangalore-Mumbai and Mumbai-Hyderabad sectors.
The company spokesperson said the airline will initially schedule its operations on a 12-hour basis and will extend it subsequently after more flights are added to the operations.
In Kolkata, five Jet Airways flights were cancelled Sunday morning. Only two of its flights, including the Kolkata-Dhaka international flight, took off from the eastern metropolis.
Jet operations in Chennai were near normal on Sunday. Barring a flight to Delhi, 27 other flights on national and international routes resumed this morning.