In IndiGo too, technicians go on “mass sick leave” for the fourth straight day
In IndiGo too, technicians go on “mass sick leave” for the fourth straight day
Pay unrest in the aviation industry has spilled over to Go First, where about 70 cabin crew across the airline’s network went on mass sick leave on Monday to protest pay cuts, and technicians went on a second day of protest leave. logging in.
Technicians at GoFirst, who maintain aircraft to ensure they are airborne, went on mass sick leave in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru on Sunday and were also away from work on Monday. Apart from four major airports, he has called for similar protests at Ranchi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad airports on Tuesday.
According to a source in the airline’s engineering team, the anger is over low wages. Although technicians have not faced pay cuts, they generally earn from ₹18,000 to ₹20,000 and some of the recent pay hikes offered by the airline were only “40-50”. “We often work in extremely dangerous conditions with very little training. The job of a technician doesn’t differ much from that of aircraft maintenance engineers, but they get paid between 1/15th to 1/6th of the latter, even though their role demands a high level of technical skill. said whoever had shared similar concerns with the hike in salary and nominal.
delay in salary
It is reliably learned that about 70 of the airline’s cabin crew have also called sick. There was also panic over the salaries of all classes of employees, including pilots, not deposited till late Monday night. A pilot said that he was drawing a salary of ₹60,000 for the last two years, when his salary was ₹4 lakh per month pre-pandemic.
A Go First spokesperson said there had been pay delays at the airline since the pandemic, but did not respond to an email query on the impact of mass sick leave by technicians and cabin crew.
In IndiGo too, technicians were on “mass sick leave” for the fourth consecutive day at stations like Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai.
“I paid ₹5 lakh for my training to become a technician and joined the company at a salary of ₹8,000, and now earn ₹16,000. During the pandemic, we faced huge cuts and were paid our basic salary of only ₹8,000. But now that work is more than before, and the airline is spending money on its expansion and acquiring 2-3 planes every month, it is time to revise our salaries. At the current rate of inflation it is very difficult for us to meet our daily requirements,” said an IndiGo technician on condition of anonymity.
Though attempts were made by the management to resolve the issue, including by offering transport allowance of Rs 1,000, sources in the technicians say they have decided to continue their protest till they get the revised pay.
“I am happy to report that we have an agreement on rationalization of discrepancies caused by the pandemic. Letters reflecting this rationalization will be issued to you in the next two weeks and will be effective from August 1, 2022,” IndiGo senior vice president Sanjay Gupta wrote to his team on Monday evening.
DGCA’s stand
An official of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said, “Airlines have informed that there is no impact on the flight schedule as the flights are cleared by aircraft maintenance engineers. The salary issue is a matter between the airlines and their employees and we have been told that talks are on to resolve it.
On July 2, IndiGo’s nearly 300 cabin crew went on “mass sick leave” to protest the pay cut imposed due to COVID-19, which was not reinstated despite an increase in demand, which was in line with the pre-pandemic level was 93%. May. Due to this 55% of the airline’s flights were delayed that day. Within days of the protest, the airline announced 8% restoration of salaries of pilots and restoration of flying allowance for cabin crew. In April, IndiGo pilots threatened to go on mass sick leave, but the airline managed to kick it off by suspending some of them.