In another blow to the already (severely) hit aviation sector, India’s largest and the only profitable airline, Indigo has reinstated the leave without pay policy for its employees for a period of 1.5 to four days, resulting from a downfall in the demand of air travel.
Indigo, which commands a domestic market share of 59.24% (in the domestic aviation market), has asked its pilots to undertake three days of leave without pay for the next three months with effect from June 1.
LWP Policy Reinstated for Indigo Pilots
In 2020, the Gurugram-headquartered airline company had imposed the leave without pay policy for its employees (pilots), blaming the Covid-19 pandemic for the reshuffle in pay structure.
However, as the air travel started witnessing an uptick in recovery a few months later, the airline did away with the LWP policy.
Now, with the second wave of the pandemic back into play, the aviation sector is becoming more crippled, as the demand for air travel is falling down severely.
CNBCTV18 informs that the daily domestic air passenger traffic has fallen to under 1 lakh since May 5 from the highs of over 3 lakh in February of 2021.
This fall in the passenger volume comes cumulated with the government’s decision of operating domestic aviation capacity at a reduced 50% from initial 80%.
As a result of all these factors into play, Indigo has asked its pilots to undertake three days of leave without pay for the next three months with effect from June 1.
“The second wave has been difficult for all of us and has also resulted in reduction of passenger loads. As a result our commercial schedule had to be curtailed accordingly. Unfortunately due to the reduced capacity we will have to institute an LWP program for all employees which would range from 1.5 to 4 days depending on the employee group (except for band A & B). All pilots would undertake 3 days of LWP for the next 3 months effective 1st June 2021,” wrote Indigo to its employees on May 1.
The number of days applicable for non-crew flight operation employees will be informed by their vertical heads shortly, read a mail sent to the flight employees.
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