Air hostess and her mother jump out of window over job loss

Former air hostess of Russia’s Dalavia Airline, who was fired as a result of the company’s bankruptcy, committed suicide in the city of Khabarovsk. The woman jumped out of the window. Her mother, a 51-year-old woman, committed suicide the next day: the woman jumped out of the window too.

Photo: Air hostess and her mother jump out of window over job loss

“The woman’s mother hurled herself out of the window of her apartment on the tenth storey. The 51-year-old woman died on the scene. Her daughter was 27,” a spokesperson for the local law-enforcement department said.

The colleagues of the deceased air hostess said that she was living on her unemployment allowance after she had lost the job in the airline.

Dalavia’s employees are currently raising funds to bury the woman and her mother. The airline itself is not going to provide any financial assistance at this point, RIA Novosti news agency said.

Dalavia is one of Russia’s largest airlines in the Far East of the country. The company is currently going through bankruptcy proceedings over its debts of 2 billion rubles. There were 2,800 employees working at the airline. Nearly all of them have been fired. The airline’s salary debts to its employees make up 208 million rubles. The last time, when the people were paid for their job, was in October 2008.

“Many of those, who have been fired from the airline, are having very hard times at the moment. If both husband and wife worked at the airline, they just have no source of income right now. Many families have to pay their loans, to maintain their children, some others need to pay mortgage loans. Many of them receive calls from banks and collection agencies every day and even night telling them to sell their apartments and pay the debts,” former air hostess Liliya Kuznetsova said.

Job agencies offer such vacancies to former employees of the airline as post workers – 8,000 rubles (about $300), catering jobs – 6,000 rubles ($200), whereas a Dalavia air hostess was normally paid up to 30,000 rubles a month ($1,000).

“Dalavia has always been a respectable airline in Russia. It won a number of national awards. We finished the year 2007 with a very good profit. I do not understand how our company stopped its existence,” former pilot of Dalavia Nikolai Gaiman said.