New Delhi: Inter Globe Aviation-led IndiGo, the country's largest domestic airline, has decided to again implement the leave without pay (LWP) program for all its employees for up to four days per month till September as passenger traffic reduced due to the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
"The second wave has been difficult for all of us and has also resulted in a reduction of passenger loads and the target of our commercial schedule had to be curtailed accordingly. Unfortunately due to reduced capacity, we will have to execute an LWP program for all employees which would remain from 1.5 to 4 days depending on the employee group (except for band A and B)," IndiGo wrote to employees on May 31.
"All pilots would undertake three days of LWP for the next three months effective 1st June 2021. The number of days applicable for non-creamy flight operation employees will be informed by their vertical heads shortly," Senior Vice President of Flight Operations at IndiGo Ashim Mitra said.
The letter further added that the airline's major focus is to get all the employees inoculated against Covid-19. "As of date, approximately 80 per cent of our eligible pilots have been administered their first dose of vaccine," Mitra said.
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On May 30, no-frills carrier Spice Jet had also announced to restore their structure of paying the employees according to their work hours.
"The company is reverting to the structure where employees will be paid according to the work hours contributed while maintaining basic thresholds. While the salaries for the month of May shall be credited to your bank accounts on 1 June, there will be a graded deferment of up to 35 per cent for some of our employees," an e-mail letter from the Spice Jet HR to the employees said.
Read: IndiGo waives off change fees on domestic bookings
Notably, the pay cut announcement by domestic airlines has come just after the Ministry of Civil Aviation slashed domestic airline capacity from 80 percent to 50 percent.
Domestic airline passenger traffic has fallen to under 1 lakh since May 5 from over 3 lakh in February 2021. On May 30, domestic airlines operated in India with around 70,000 passengers approximately.
Read: IndiGo operations at Goa airport hit after staffers go on strike
