Air India has let go of over 180 non-flying staff members in recent weeks. The impacted employees are those who failed to utilise the opportunities to avail of the voluntary retirement schemes (VRS) or reskill themselves. They form about one per cent of the workforce.
The airline, owned by the Tata Group, has assured that it is fulfilling all obligations as per contract.
The last year and a half has seen the airline evaluating the suitability of individual employees for various non-flying roles. Two rounds of VR schemes were also offered during this time, along with opportunities for the employees to reskill themselves.
Efforts have been on to ensure more agility and efficiency within the organsiation, in alignment with a business model that will support expansion.
In July of 2023, in an endeavour to ensure that staff members were made aware of what was expected of them, Air India had decided to state job descriptions with clarity and also lay out specific goals for its workforce. For this, it had relied on a new performance-management system for the non-flying employees. This was part of the Tata Group’s attempts to revive the national carrier, and in the process, bring about more transparency and fairness in the appraisal system. This digitised performance-management process, under the Rise.AI project of the carrier, was intended to clearly convey what the employees were expected to deliver. The new system was also aligned with the pre-existing Vihaan.AI goals of the airline. Vihaan.AI was the name given to the Tata Group’s transformation plan for Air India under which it intends to grow the airline’s fleet and network, and also revamp its customer proposition, ensuring reliability, sustainability and innovation.
