New Delhi: In a continuous run to reduce the bearing cost, debt-laden Jet Airways has once again sacked as many as 16 more employees who were working as ground staff in company’s Kochi and Hyderabad offices, news agency PTI reported. Even last month, the private air carrier fired around 20 of its employees which included some senior-level executives from the in-flight services department. In a similar exercise, the airlines had reportedly terminated contracts of managerial level employees from various departments, including engineering, security and sales departments. As of now, the company has a fleet of 124 planes with around 16,000 employees working with it.

“The airline continues to lay-off people from various departments in small groups. It has already shut its city office in Hyderabad, which had 4-5 employees. Last week, the airline asked some of its employees working in Kochi office to quit. Together, it has retrenched another 16 people from these two offices,” PTI quoted its source as saying. However, commenting about the lay-offs, Jet Airways said that the company is optimising its resources in select cities, including re-deploying resources where needed. “Jet Airways has undertaken a series of initiatives to enhance the economic performance, efficiency and productivity for the long-term health of its business,” a Jet Airways spokesperson said.

“Consequently, the company is optimising its resources in select cities, including re-deploying resources where needed, for greater synergy with the revised level of operations,” the spokesperson said further.

Partially owned by Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways, Jet Airways posted a net loss of Rs 1,261 crore for the September quarter and has been defaulting on salary payments to some of its staffs. This was the third successive quarterly loss for the air carrier.

Recently company’s CEO Vinay Dube had said the airline was in active discussion with various investors to secure financing to navigate through current headwinds and create long-term growth.