“All management staff, engineers and commercial staff have agreed (but) the pilots... are throwing a fit,” a Jet official said at the end of day-long talks.

A company spokesperson declined to confirm the agreed cuts, saying: “An official announcement will be made in two-three days.” The announcement is expected after a decision on pilots’ salaries.

An email sent out to staff on Friday had promised no pay cuts for those drawing salaries below Rs 1 lakh a month. “But by the end of the day, it was felt prudent to lower that cutoff mark to Rs 75,000 a month for the sake of a fairer sharing of this burden,” the Jet source said.

Of Jet’s 13,200 employees, around 2,000 earn more than Rs 1 lakh a month and nearly 3,000 are paid over Rs 75,000. Cabin crew, who earn less, will not be affected for now.

The pilots, asked to take a 10-20 per cent cut depending on their salary brackets that range from Rs 2 lakh to over Rs 5 lakh, rejected the proposal.

“We want the expatriate pilots sent back home first. Their salaries are 40 per cent more than what the senior-most Indian pilots draw,” said a Jet commander.

The company now has 200 expatriate pilots after sacking 35 recently. The remaining 1,000 are Indians, many of whom have been benched after the airline pruned scheduled routes. More meetings are lined up on Monday with the pilots who are to return with their suggestions by Thursday.

Last month, Jet had sacked 1,900 employees before company chairman Naresh Goyal dramatically reinstated them a few days later.

Today’s talks, scheduled to start at 2pm, began half an hour late at the Renaissance Hotel convention centre. “There was no lunch, just tea and coffee with some refreshments. Staring as we were at salary cuts… the five-star food felt bland and the coffee a tad bitter,” the pilot said.

A five-member committee headed by Goyal met groups of employees through the day. “The staff were represented by their team leaders in the discussions which were held separately for each team,” an executive said. The leaders came back to explain the proposals to the rest of the team, to convince them and to report back to the management.