COVID-19 crisis: IndiGo announces pay cut ranging from 15-25% amid operation curtailment

IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta on Thursday announced a pay cut for all employees amid the novel Coronavirus crisis. He also mentioned that senior vice presidents and above would take a 20% pay cut while the salaries of the cockpit crew would be cut by 15%. At the same time, Dutta stressed that he would himself take a 25% cut in salary. Highlighting the substantial loss in revenue, he said that the very survival of the airline industry was at stake.

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Problems in the airline sector

Earlier in the day, IndiGo’s flight operations chief wrote an email to the pilots explaining that it was necessary to make some tough decisions as the economic environment in the aviation sector was not good. He informed them that a string of measures will be implemented over the next few days and weeks. With countries including India restricting international travel, the aviation sector has been badly hit with the curtailment of operations.

The problem has exacerbated with cancellation and rescheduling of flights being reported even among domestic passengers. As per a report released by aviation consultancy CAPA India on Wednesday, there is a possibility of the Indian airlines initially grounding around 150 aircraft. Moreover, it warned that the majority of the fleet will have to be grounded by April if the decline in air traffic continued.  

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The novel Coronavirus crisis

First detected in Wuhan in December 2019, COVID-19- the novel Coronavirus has affected nearly 164 countries in the world. Presently, there are over 2,07,860 confirmed cases of COVID-19 which has led to the death of at least 8,657 people. As there is no vaccine or specific antiviral medicine to deal to treat COVID-19, countries have been grappling with all possible mechanisms to contain its spread.

Meanwhile, India has suspended all visas, barring for a few categories such as diplomatic and employment apart from keeping in abeyance the visa-free travel facility to OCI cardholders till April 15. The Centre has “strongly advised” Indians to avoid all non-essential travel abroad. Currently, there are 166 confirmed cases of the novel Coronavirus with one death reported in Mumbai, Delhi and Kalaburagi each.  

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