Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - HT Navi Mumbai Live
Tatas shuffle Air India’s management, restore pay
NEW DELHI: Tata group, the new owners of Air India Ltd, has begun the process of restoring the salaries of employees who had to undergo steep pay cuts during the Covid pandemic.
In an internal announcement on Friday, Air India said the salary cuts have been reviewed and restoration has begun in a phased manner from April 1.
A copy of the communication has been reviewed by Mint.
On February 21, Mint
reported that Tata has begun the process of restoring Air India pilots’ and aircrews’ salaries in a wider restructuring of wages and allowances to align them with those of the three other airlines owned by the conglomerate.
According to the Air India communication on Friday, a portion of flying allowances, special pay, and wide-body allowances for pilots has been restored, while a chunk of cabin crew allowances has been partially restored.
The airline has also partially restored allowances and gross emoluments for officers, staff operators, local employees at foreign locations and Indiabased officers.
Further on Friday, the group carried out a reshuffle in the top management of Air India. According to an internal note sent out by the chairman of the airline and of Tata Sons, N. Chandrasekaran, a copy of which has been reviewed by Mint, Nipun Aggarwal has been appointed chief commercial officer, Suresh Dutt Tripathi chief human resources officer, Satya Ramaswamy chief digital and technology officer and Rajesh Dogra the head of customer experience and ground handling.
RS Sandhu, director (operations) at the airline, has been reappointed as chief of operations, and Vinod Hejmadi, former director (finance), has been appointed the chief financial officer at the airline.
Amrita Sharan has been appointed the adviser to the airline’s chief executive officer (CEO) for human resources and Meenakshi Malik has been named the adviser to the CEO for commercial, technology and other areas.
However, since Air India is yet to hire a chief executive to head the airline, Sharan and Malik would be advisers to the chairman, until a CEO is posted. Air India was handed back to its founders, the Tata group, in January 2022, almost seven decades after the airline was nationalized.