For the second straight month, SpiceJet employees haven’t received their salaries on time.
It is reported that many employees, including flight crew haven’t received their July salaries. They have also not received their Form 16 for FY 2021-22, as some employees have reportedly claimed.
While staff did receive salaries on time in June, their salaries have not been restored to pre-COVID levels yet.
Captains and first officers are apparently getting less than half their pre-COVID salaries. Several pilots have quit recently because of less than satisfactory salaries, irregularities, delay in payment of salaries and also because some had to pay higher tax due to tax and PF inconsistencies in their payslips.
On 31 August, Sanjeev Taneja, the chief financial officer of SpiceJet, put in his papers following the Airline posting a loss of about Rs 789 crore for the quarter ended June. It had incurred losses of Rs 729 crore during the same quarter last year.
The Airline, however, claims that salaries are being paid in a ‘graded format’. It had said that the salaries for August will be paid in a staggered fashion, beginning August end and going up till the middle of September.
According to SpiceJet, the reason for delay was the rising cost of fuel and because the three months from July to September anyway witness lesser air travel.
Now that the fuel prices have come down and demand is expected to increase with the festival season fast approaching, there appears to be some hope of the situation improving.
