Indigo lays off 10% staff to tide over crisis in aviation sector, calls decision ‘unfortunate’

Private airline Indigo, the nation’s largest airline by market share, has determined to put off 10% of its complete workforce, citing monetary bother as a result of Covid-19 pandemic, Indigo CEO Ronojoy Dutta introduced on Monday.

The airline stated regardless of taking a number of measures like implementing pay cuts and setting up obligatory depart with out pay for workers, it has not been capable of maintain enterprise amid the pandemic.

Indigo has created a particular bundle for these staff who will likely be affected by the present resolution to scale back workers energy. Staff who will likely be laid off will likely be paid for his or her discover interval on their gross wage.

“Currently, Indigo is flying only a small percentage of its full fleet of 250 airplanes. For us, it was critical to minimise the impact of the pandemic on our employees and in fact Indigo was one of the few airlines globally which paid full salaries for the month of March and April 2020, despite the disruption in business. Subsequently, we did have to undertake a number of measures such as Pay Cuts, Leave Without Pay but these cost savings are clearly not enough to offset the decline in revenues,” CEO Ronojoy Dutta stated in a press release.

He added that it was unimaginable for the corporate to fly with out making some sacrifices, to be able to maintain enterprise operations. “It is clear that we will need to bid a painful adieu to 10 per cent of our workforce. It is for the first time in the history of Indigo that we have undertaken such a painful measure. This is indeed a very unfortunate turn of events from the optimistic growth trajectory we had carved out for ourselves just six months ago; but this pandemic has forced us to re-evaluate our best laid plans,” Dutta stated.

On March 31, 2019, the airline had a complete of 23,531 staff on its payroll.

Globally, the aviation sector has been hit onerous by the unfold of coronavirus since most nations had imposed lockdown and suspended worldwide flights earlier within the yr. In India, too, home flights had been grounded for nearly two months throughout a nationwide lockdown imposed from March 24. Domestic flights to a couple cities, nevertheless, resumed in a staggered method from May 25.