Govt wants to make sure Jet’s employees have a very good & soft landing: Jayant Sinha

New Delhi: As beleaguered airline Jet Airways continues to be on life support and its employees wait for a word of certainty on their futures, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said in an interview that the government wants to make sure that the airline's employees are absorbed in the aviation ecosystem as soon as possible.

"We want to make sure they have a very good and soft landing. We are very focussed on ensuring good employment prospects for them. The good news in all of this is the fact that the industry is growing, there is tremendous long-term demand for aviation services and I am very sure that all the talented and capable employees of Jet Airways will find a very good home whether at Jet Airways or in other companies," said Sinha in an interview to The Economic Times.

'People's dues will have to be met'

Touching upon the issue of employees not getting salaries for the last three-four months, Sinha said, "…there are challenges… but whatever peoples' dues are, it will have to be met in some fashion or the other." On being asked if looking at other domestic airlines to provide 20,000 jobs is tough because the gap is glaring, Sinha said that the crisis at Jet Airways is undergoing a period of transition at the moment which is going to throw up challenges, but the employees of the airline will be absorbed back into the aviation market in some time.

"But give it some time and you will find that everyone will be very smoothly absorbed. I will take you back to Kingfisher, after Kingfisher's shutdown everybody got absorbed into various other airlines and they continue to have great careers. Just give it some time and you will find that the process of absorption will happen quite smoothly," Sinha said.

'Govt should intervene only when there are systemic risks'

Elaborating on the role of the government in an economy, Sinha said that governments should intervene only when there are systemic risks involved, as was in the case of Infrastructure, Leasing and Finance Services (IL&FS). "For us, while handling the aviation system the important thing is to ensure that this market disruption moves through the system in a smooth manner and that all the assets and people are absorbed efficiently, without too much friction within the existing legal and regulatory framework," he said.

"So markets do work and we have got to let markets work. When governments operate, they have to establish a legal and regulatory framework and within that, the various players have to conduct themselves," he added.