Debt-strapped airline SpiceJet will defer employees’ salary for May by 35 per cent. The airline has also informed its pilots that they will now be paid “according to the work hours contributed”.

Days after celebrating its 16th anniversary of operations, SpiceJet has now informed its employees “While the salaries for the month of May shall be credited to your bank accounts on June 1, there will be graded deferment of up to 35 per cent for some of our employees. The deferred amount will be released from second week of June onwards.”

However, employees in the lowest pay grades will be unaffected by this deferment and their salaries will be paid in full.

It further said that SpiceJet is now opting for a structure where employees will be paid according to the work hours contributed while maintaining basic thresholds. This comes even as the employees have been working on a salary cut for the past several months.

The company said that the second wave of Covid-19 has hit the Indian aviation industry the hardest, but this time the impact has been much more severe especially on our industry. During this second wave the passenger traffic has fallen to less than 10 per cent as compared to the pre-Covid levels.

Recognising the sudden surge in the number of active Covid cases across the country, decrease in passenger traffic and load factors, the Government has also recently reduced the capacity cap from 80 per cent to 50 per cent of the pre-Covid levels capacity.

The sudden drop due to unprecedented surge in Covid cases coupled with varied travel restrictions across India has adversely affected our revenue and cash flows. It is still unknown whether the cases have peaked-out or the traffic has bottomed-out, and hence, it has taken such a decision.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW