Air India begins work to restore staff salaries
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Air India has started work on reversing the salaries of its pilots and air crew that were cut during the pandemic . The consultation of the reversal of salaries is one of the first steps that the Tata Group is taking after it took over the debt ridden Air India.
“Some of the first changes will be reversal of salaries of pilots and crew members. Discussions have started on the process,” said a senior executive aware of the new initiatives. “The company is also looking into the allowances, leave policies, retention measures that are given to all employees. A public sector company has a much more complex set of these variables and that now needs to be aligned to Tata Group’s policies,” he added.
The latest moves comes after Tata Group took over Air India which has about 12,085 employees of which 8,084 are permanent. However, the rollbacks are yet to get implemented, two pilots with the airline, including a captain and a first officer, told
Mint. These include cuts in basic salary, flying allowance, deadhead allowance, layover allowance, among other things.
“Pilots haven’t been informed by the management anything about reversal of salary cuts yet,” said one of the above-mentioned pilots. That said , disbursal of salaries of Air India employees, earlier delayed under the government, are now prompt.
“There is no delay in disbursement of salaries under the Tata Group. For instance, the flying allowance for March used to come in June. Now, this is paid the very next month,” the person added. Meanwhile, another industry official told Mint that the salaries at Air India are likely to be realigned to the structure followed by other Tata Group-operated airlines like Vistara, and AirAsia India.
“The salary structure of Air India employees is complicated. Tata Group is likely to follow a single salary structure for all its flying crew across airlines,” the person added, requesting anonymity. Tata group recently appointed the former chairman of Turkish Airlines, Ilker Ayci, as Air India Ltd’s new chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD), marking a key step in efforts to overhaul the loss-making airline.
Air India is one of four airline brands operated by Tata Group. The Mumbai-based conglomerate holds majority stakes in AirAsia India and Vistara, apart from Air India Express. As things stand, the Tata group has rolled out a 100-day plan for Air India to improve the airline.
In his first address to Air India staff last week, Tata group chairman N. Chandrasekaran said that the conglomerate wanted to expand the airline’s network, modernize its fleet, spruce up its customer service and make it a technologically advanced airline.
He, however, added that Air India would achieve its targets with stringent financial discipline indicating a plan to exercise prudence concerning the finances of the airline.
Ahead of the handover of Air India to the Tata Group, pilots had written to the management of the airline seeking restoration of salaries and stating that the ‘disproportionate’ pay cuts carried out during the pandemic period should be rolled back.