On the third day of a “mass sick leave” called by aircraft technicians at Gofirst, the protests spread to at least 14 stations. Around 110 cabin crew have also reported ill.
Technicians from GoFirst joined the protests in Bengaluru, Pune, Port Blair, Kannur, Nagpur, Chandigarh, Ranchi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Goa, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Sources say that at most of these stations around 90% technicians are part of the agitation, while in Kolkata around 50% have joined.
A stir started in Delhi on Sunday evening as technicians were away from work. Sources said that on Monday, they were calling 70 cabin crew sick along with technicians from Mumbai and Bengaluru. Staff sources said 110 cabin crew reported ill on Tuesday.
However, the airline denied that the cabin crew also went on sick leave.
His anger is over the low salary, especially after the airline has not been paid for nearly 18 months. A technician earns a monthly salary of ₹19,403, and a senior technician earns ₹22,098.
An airline technician said, “We were on leave without pay from March 2020 to November 2021. The airline will call a technician for seven days and do maintenance work as it wanted to cut down on its expenditure on staff.” part of the movement.
Meanwhile, at IndiGo, where technicians have also been on mass leave since Friday, the olive branch of the management has failed to persuade the protesters to return to work. In Indigo too, a technician earns between ₹18,000 to ₹20,000 and the demand is for a better salary, especially since there has been no increment for three to four years and many faced huge pay cuts and were paid ₹20,000. Received a salary of Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000. In April and May 2020 when there were no flights during the first nationwide lockdown imposed after the COVID-19 pandemic.