Jet Airways said today (October 15) that it had cut is winter schedule by 15%.
The Indian carrier said was also releasing 800 recently hired cabin crew.
It said this was a "first step" to shedding "personnel hired for the expansion, probationers and unconfirmed personnel who have been recently hired."
The airline earlier this week announced an alliance with rival Indian carrier Kingfisher Airlines.
Naresh Goyal, Jet's chairman, said the new alliance would make "huge savings" for the two carriers.
The statement today from Jet cited record fuel prices, the global financial crisis and a drop in traffic as reasons for its move.
The Indian domestic market had "declined by double digit figures in recent month," Jet said.
The cut in the winter schedule was "inevitable" because of this fall.
Jet said the cut in staff would include "cockpit crew and management personnel to reflect the lower number of flights and seats offered."
It said these would affect the airline across the board but denied that it had anything to do with the alliance with Kingfisher.
Jet and Kingfisher described their alliance as a "wide ranging" link up that will help them rationalise operations and save costs.
But a statement from the two carriers ruled out any "mutual investment" between them.
It said the Jet/Kingfisher tie up was in the Indian national interest and would strengthen the country's aviation industry.
The scope of the deal includes codesharing on domestic and international routes, interlining, joint fuel management, joint ground handling operations, cross selling of flight inventories, joint network rationalisation and synergies, joint use of crews and reciprocity of frequent flyer programmes.
Mr Goyal said: "The...alliance represents a completely new industrial model for aviation in India that would be based on an unprecedented depth of cooperation between the two companies.
"There will be huge cost savings and revenue enhancement opportunities arising from this alliance."
Dr Vijay Mallya, Kingfisher's chairman, said: "This is a quantum leap forward in the evolution of Indian aviation which will benefit customers by delivering the most comprehensive integration in the industry."
Visit www.jetairways.com and www.flykingfisher.com.