Frustration is mounting amongst the pilots of IndiGo, which has reportedly made a profit of about Rs 130 crore recently after a two-year lull. When these pilots went on mass leave — reporting sick on 5 April, 2022 — in protest, some of them were suspended by the airline for violating the Company’s code of conduct.
The pilots are disappointed that the airline has not restored their salaries to pre-pandemic levels. The pilots continue to suffer pay cuts even though air travel has picked up over the past few months and the fear of COVID infection has reduced drastically.
Not only have the pilots been sacrificing 28 per cent of their salaries, their flying allowance has been cut by about 50 per cent.
To add to the frustration of the pilots, the senior managers of IndiGo have been given employee stock options. That is not all, the airline has been working on expanding its fleet, while continuing to cut the salaries of its pilots.
When the disgruntled pilots began considering forming a union and also seeking support from employees of other airlines to form a bigger union of all airlines’ staff, IndiGo reversed the pay cut about a week ago.
However, it only decreased the cut of 28 per cent to 20 per cent in the salaries for pilots, and reduced the 38 per cent cut of examiners to 30 per cent.
The airline promised the pilots that after about six months, there will be an improvement of up to 6.5 per cent in the revision.
