- Indian largest domestic carrier IndiGo announced a cut in salary of the employees ranging from 5%-25% with CEO Ronojoy Dutta taking a 25% cut due to the corona crisis.
Ronojoy Dutta, CEO of IndiGo, told employees on Thursday about a company-wide top-down 5 percent-25 percent salary cut in a cost-cutting exercise in response to the coronavirus crisis that has crippled airline operations in India and around the world.
Dutta said he was taking a 25 percent cut in an email, while other executives above the rank of senior vice president will take cuts of 20 percent. Vice-presidents and pilots would have to take a 15 percent cut, while others, including the cabin crew, would be in 5 percent reductions -10 percent.
“We know how hard it is for families to cut their take-home pay. But sadly, our company can’t travel through this economic storm without making any sacrifices,” Dutta said to IndiGo employees.
Last financial year, IndiGo spent Rs 3,210 crore on wages, around 11 percent of total airline expenses. The annual report quoted the gross salary of CFO Rohit Philip as Rs 10 crore. The salary of Dutta was not quoted.
Dutta’s mail came hours after IndiGo’s flight operations head informed pilots that over the next couple of weeks the company would take some “tough calls” “The economic climate has deteriorated considerably, and no airline is excluded from this extreme decline,” Ashim Mittra, senior flight operations vice president, wrote to the pilots.
“It has become important to undertake some difficult calls and we are working on a series of steps that will be discussed and introduced over the coming days and weeks,” he added in the short missive.
IndiGo, India’s largest airline by passenger numbers, has suspended nearly 70 percent of its international operations and cancels domestic flights every day.
AirAsia India’s manager, Sunil Bhaskaran, yesterday told workers at its headquarters in Bengaluru that the airline will suspend its plans for fleet expansion as of now. This change comes two days after GoAir, a low fare airline, gave workers leave without pay and decided to terminate ex-pat pilots ‘ contracts.
