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In calendar year 2008, there was turbulence in the air as Jet Airways' Chairman pondered what course of action the airline should take. Air India was also struggling with the same dilemma. Two of India's largest airlines, Air India and Jet Airways, had sounded caution on their fiscal health due to mounting operational costs. A daily operational loss of $2 million (Rs 8.6 crore) had in fact forced Jet Airways to put its employees on alert. Jet's senior General Manager had termed the situation as grave. Jet's current losses were $2 million a day (including Jet-Lite). The current rate of Jet Airways' domestic losses was $0.5 million (Rs 2.15 crore) and that of JetLite was another $0.5 million. International business was losing over $1 million (Rs 4.30 crore) a day.

The situation was equally grave for other national carriers. Driven by mounting losses of almost Rs 10 crore a day. Air India, in its merged avatar, was considering severe cost cutting measures like slashing employee allowances, reducing In flight catering expenses on short haul flights and restructuring functional arms. The airline also considered other options like cutting maintenance costs by stationing officers at hubs, instead of allowing them to travel at regular intervals.

Jet Airways, Air India and other domestic airlines had reasons to gel worried, as 24 airlines across the world had gone bankrupt in the year on account of rising fuel costs. In India, operating costs had gone up 30 - 40%. Fuel prices had doubled in the past one year to Rs 70,000 per kilolitre, forcing airlines to increase fares. Consequently, passenger load had fallen to an average 55-60% per flight from previous year's peak of 70-75%. Other airlines faced a similar situation; some were even looking for buyers. Domestic carriers had lost about Rs 4,000 crore in 2007-08 with Air India leading the pack. "As against 27% wage bill globally, our wage bill is 22% of total input costs. Even then we are at a loss," an Air India official said. Civil aviation ministry, however, had a different take. "Air India engineers go to Dubai every fortnight to work for 15 days and stay in five star hotels. If they are stationed there, the airline would save Rs 8 crore a year. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are several things we can do to
reduce operational inefficiency. " According to analysts, Jet Airways could be looking at a combined annual loss of around Rs 3,000 crore, if there were no improvement in operational efficiencies and ATF prices. Against this backdrop, the airline had asked its employees to raise the service bar and arrest falling passenger load.