Jet Airways, India’s biggest and most established private airline, has reversed course and abandoned plans to lay off 1,900 workers, after coming under heavy pressure from the government and powerful state labour unions.

The reversal came after the carrier was publicly flayed by the petroleum minister for “callousness” for firing workers just before the major Hindu festival of Diwali, and after Naresh Goyal, the founder and chairman, was privately taken to task by Praful Patel, the aviation minister.