Budget carrier IndiGo has instituted a compulsory leave without pay (LWP) policy for its senior employees for around 4 days per month till September since passenger traffic reduced due to the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. This policy will be effective from June 1, 2021.
"The second wave has been difficult for all of us and has also resulted in a reduction in passenger loads. As a result, our commercial schedule had to be curtailed accordingly," Senior Vice President of Flight Operations at IndiGo Ashim Mittra said in an email to the pilots.
Mittra added under this policy, employees would get a compulsory leave from 1.5 to 4 days depending on the employee group. Pilots associated with IndiGo would go on 3 days of LWP for the next 3 months from June 1, 2021.
Employees belonging to the Band B and Band A, which are the lowermost bands, will not be affected due to this policy. The majority of the employees in the airline belong to Bands B and A, as per this email.
Mittra also added in the email that the airline's major focus is to get all their employees inoculated against COVID-19, adding 80 per cent of the eligible pilots got the first dose of the jab.
"We have been focussing on our vaccination drive and we have been able to facilitate vaccination for our employees at various stations. As of date, approximately 80 per cent of our eligible pilots have been administered their first dose of vaccine," Mittra wrote in this email.
Meanwhile, domestic travel is set to become more expensive as the Ministry of Civil Aviation raised the lower limit on airfares by 13 to 16 per cent, which will come into effect from June 1, 2021. The upper limit, however, was kept unchanged.
The lower limit for flights under 40 minutes duration will be hiked by 13 per cent from Rs 2,300 to Rs 2,600. Flights with a duration between 40 minutes and 60 minutes will have a lower limit of Rs 3,300 instead of Rs 2,900, as per this order.
Edited by Mehak Agarwal
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