Months after Jet Airways got embroiled in a controversy over an expatriate pilot making racist remarks against an Indian passenger on a flight, the airline has begun a process of “phasing out” the expat pilots employed with it.
As many as 25 expat pilots will be sent back by the middle of September, reported Times of India.
The controversy regarding racial discrimination surfaced on 26 April when veteran cricketer Harbhajan Singh took to Twitter to say that the pilot in question, named Bernd Hoesslin, “physically assaulted a lady and abused a physically challenged man”, besides calling them “bloody Indians.”
In the same month, the airline’s body National Aviators Guild (NAG), comprising Indian pilots, had directed its members not to fly with expats in the cockpit after one of the foreign pilots allegedly assaulted a trainer in Bengaluru.
The airline subsequently reiterated that action would be taken against those at fault.
Out of the 2,000 pilots that Jet Airways employs, around 100 are expatriates.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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