Domestic airlines allowed to operate 80% of pre-Covid flights

Domestic airlines can now operate 80 per cent of the flights that they were operating in pre-Covid times, Hardeep Puri, Minister for Civil Aviation, said in a tweet on Thursday.

On November 11, the government had increased the number of flights that domestic airlines could operate to 70 per cent of the level flown before operations were completely stopped on March 25.

“Domestic operations recommenced with 30,000 passengers on May 25 and have now touched 2.52 lakh on November 30,” the Minister’s tweet read.

Meanwhile, Delhi-based low cost airline SpiceJet has decided to half the salary cuts for its top and mid-run employees, which were put in place in March for salary paid in April this year.

In March, the airline had announced a 10-30 per cent cut in salary for all employees across top and mid-levels.

SpiceJet’s partial roll-back means those employees whose salary was being cut by 10 per cent will now see a 5 per cent cut in their salaries, while those who had their salaries cut by 30 per cent will now have a 15 per cent salary cut.

Like carriers globally, SpiceJet had to resort to salary cuts because of the Covid-19 pandemic. With planes grounded between March 25 and May 24, SpiceJet reported a net loss of ₹593.4 crore for the quarter ended June 2020. In the September-ended quarter, SpiceJet reported a net loss of ₹112.6 crore.

Indigo to remove leave-without-pay

Meanwhile, in a late-night development, IndiGo has said that in anticipation of improved revenues, the Chief Executive Officer, Rono Dutta has decided to remove leave-without-pay across all departments from January next year.

The year-end summary communication to the employees adds that the airline is hopeful that the government will allow “us to fly 100 per cent of our domestic capacity by early next year.”

“The outlook for international traffic continues to be challenging and is a matter of some concerns. While we are not yet out of the woods, we are certainly moving in the right direction,” Dutta said.

IndiGo recently started operating 1,000 flights a day after the government allowed airlines to run up to 70 per cent of the flights that they served during the pre-Covid times.