Not very long ago a bunch of employees had left Jet to join Kingfisher. When KF closed down, they had nowhere to go. Luckily for some of them Indigo and SpiceJet were recruiting and could find jobs there. Some of the non flying staff – like ground staff, baggage handling staff, etc. found jobs in Luxury cruises, hotels, etc. Obviously we do not have enough data, but I guess we could assume that almost all of them have been placed somewhere – in the airline industry or elsewhere.

I was very impressed with KF’s service – and one visit to their office showed me why. The training was impeccable and I remember that they had set up a training academy at the same time that they set up the airline. Many of the employees – including very senior ones were from Jet Airways – and it was a coup how those people were poached.

Now it is the turn of almost 25k employees to turn for a job.

Well if you are one among them what should you do?

1. Dip into your emergency fund: If you had created an emergency fund, dip into it. Ideally you should have say 5-9 months of expenses in that fund, so your next few months are taken care of financially.
2. if you do not have an emergency fund, you may still be able to draw down your other assets. You should withdraw first from your bank fixed deposits – and that is not very difficult, is it?
3. Next place to get money from is your Endowment policies. Did you know that you could get some real cheap loans from your active endowment policies? These are the cheapest loans, so go and explore this. Call the life insurance agent – and you will get money at say 9% p.a. rate of interest – and this is surely far superior to getting a personal loan from the bank.
4. You could take a ‘loan’ on your home. Even if the house is already pledged with say – SBI- you could go and ask them for a loan. If you have a ‘flexi’ loan from SBI – then you can straight away withdraw your full entitled amount – and there is no need to pay the EMI. One of the sanest things to do is to convert your EMI into a flexi loan from the bank
5. IN case you are withdrawing from your mutual fund portfolio the sequence of draw down should be – liquid fund, ultra short bond fund, short term income fund, Income fund….as far as debt funds are concerned. In case you have equity funds from which you are forced to withdraw, withdraw from large cap fund…..and then you can withdraw from mid-cap fund.

What if the assets are not enough for you to meet your expenses? You could take a personal loan – the most expensive option.

Make a realistic estimate of your net worth, and figure out how long you can live with the money that you have. Think of borrowing INTERNALLY before you consider a bank personal loan.

What next?