INDIGO PLANS TO LAY OFF 2,700 EMPLOYEES

NEWDELHI: Indigo, India’s largest domestic airline, will lay off a tenth of its staff or about 2,700 employees as it battles falling revenue and passenger traffic because of the turbulence from the coronavirus outbreak.

“And from where things stand currently, it is impossible for our company to fly through this economic storm without making some sacrifices, in order to sustain our business operations,” Indigo’s chief executive Ronojoy Dutta said in a statement on Monday. “Therefore, after carefully assessing and reviewing all possible scenarios, it is clear that we will need to bid a painful adieu to 10% of our workforce,” Dutta said. Indigo, run by Interglobe Aviation Ltd, had about 27,000 employees, including contractual staff as of March 31, a company spokesperson said.

Impacted employees will be paid “notice pay in lieu of serving notice applicable to them”, besides a severance pay calculated as one month of CTC for every completed year of service, subject to a maximum of 12 months, while their insurance coverage will be extended till December 2020, Dutta said. “An impacted employee will receive at least three months’ gross salary, including both the above payments (notice pay and severance pay),” he said, adding such employees will also be eligible to collect annual bonuses and annual pay-linked incentives, when the company decides to make the payout to rest of staff.

During May, like most of its peers, Indigo had initiated 20-25% pay cuts for senior staff, including pilots, in addition to a graded leave-without-pay programme for all its employees until July to save costs. The pandemic, which has claimed millions of lives globally, has severely hit India’s aviation sector as demand remains muted while the country inches towards normalcy after prolonged periods of lockdowns and travel restrictions.