The chairman of Jet Airways, India’s largest private airline, has accused his pilots of “behaving like terrorists” after hundreds of them went on sick leave to protest against the sacking of four colleagues involved in union activities.

Naresh Goyal made the comments after the action by disgruntled flight crews on Tuesday left tens of thousands of Jet's passengers stranded — both in India and overseas.

The dismissed pilots had been fighting to establish a union to defend workers' rights at a time when India’s troubled airlines are scrambling to cut capacity and slash costs.

Mr Goyal said that Jet, which was thought to be losing about £250,000 a day even before the disruption, would not be negotiating until the "sick" pilots resumed work.

“They are behaving like terrorists. They cannot hold the country, the passengers and the airline hostage," he told reporters.

Yesterday, 432 out of Jet's 760 pilots stayed home citing illness, forcing the cancellation of 223 domestic and 26 international flights.

Today, with more than 200 flights again set to be cancelled despite a Bombay High Court order demanding the pilots return to work, there was no sign of a resolution.

"There are no talks being held right now. The management is not talking," Sam Thomas, the general secretary of National Aviators' Guild (NAG), the Jet Airways pilots' union, said.

The pilots called the action after two of their colleagues were dismissed in July for trying to re-organise the newly formed union. Two more pilots were sacked on Wednesday.

Jet said that the four were fired for indiscipline and called the mass absence of pilots a "simulated strike".

The dispute comes at a difficult time for the Indian aviation industry, with relations between management and workers plumbing fresh lows in both the private and public sector.

Last month, more than 20,000 employees of Air India, the cash-strapped state-owned airline, embarked on a three-day hunger strike to protest against plans to cut their pay.

The fast came after the national carrier, which reported a loss of at least £625 million last year, proposed slashing the so-called productivity-linked incentives it pays employees by 50 per cent.

The bonus payments account for between a third and a half of the pay taken home by most Air India employees and cost the airline about £175 million last year.

The current crisis follows a period where India's aviation sector had grown at breakneck speed, before the global economic slowdown and a slump in the number of middle-class fliers exposed a glut of excess capacity.

Also in August, the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), a trade body that includes the country’s largest private carriers, called off a proposed one-day strike that had threatened to hobble much of India’s air network.

The FIA, which accounts for 80 per cent of domestic traffic, was demanding cuts to fuel taxes and airport charges. It backed down after coming under fierce political pressure from New Delhi.

In the wake of the credit crisis, India’s airlines have trailed only those of America in terms of the collective losses they have suffered — partly because of the wrath they have incurred when trying to trim their bloated workforces.

Last October, Jet shocked the nation by sacking 1,900 air hostesses after racking up huge losses and defaulting on its fuel bills. The following day, following a public outcry and a threat from one extremist political party to prevent Jet's planes from landing in Mumbai, the airline made a stunning U-turn and took all the laid-off staff back.

"The employees are like family members to me," Mr Goyal, who claimed he had been out of town and unaware of the decision to cull 15 per cent of his company's workforce, said at the time. "I was mentally disturbed when I saw tears in their eyes."

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