India's Jet Airways says lowers expat staff, wages

MUMBAI, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Jet Airways (JET.BO), India's top private carrier, has reduced its expatriate staff including pilots and cut salaries to help beat a slowdown that has gripped the aviation industry, the company said on Wednesday.

The airline, which saw some cancellations in bookings on some domestic routes following last week's deadly attacks in Mumbai, said its top management had voluntarily accepted a 25 percent reduction in salaries from December.

All staff earning a gross salary of more than 75,000 rupees ($1,500) a month have been asked to accept a graduated wage cut over the next 12 months, Jet said in a statement.

It did not say how many expatriate positions had been cut.

Jet Airways, which operates a fleet of 85 aircraft, said for pilots this would be in the form of a combination of wage cut and allowance rationalization.

In October, Jet Airways had reinstated 800 sacked flight attendants following protests in cities and demands for a probe by politicians.

The carrier, which posted a net loss of 3.84 billion rupees in the September quarter, has over the past few months cut routes, reduced its frequency of flights and pruned down overseas expansion plans.

Along with smaller rival Kingfisher Airlines (KING.BO) the two carriers are also planning to return 14 narrow bodied leased aircraft following a code sharing alliance between the two in October.

Jet has said it expects the difficult market conditions to continue and has struggled to raise money with the turbulent market delaying a planned $400 million rights issue as well as a stake sale by founder Naresh Goyal.

Shares in Jet Airways, which closed up 4.3 percent at 127.90 rupees, have fallen 88 percent this year, compared with a nearly 57 drop in the main BSE index .BSESN. (Reporting by Janaki Krishnan & Aniruddha Basu; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)