Air India's plan to cut wages, flights may run into rough weather

New Delhi, Mumbai: Air India's plans of reducing salaries of employees could run into rough weather, with sections of the employees opposing the move.
Sources told Business Line that the airline may reduce salaries by 10-15 per cent in the New Year. Earlier this year, the airline board had recommended a 50-per cent cut in wages. The proposal, however, could not be implemented due to protests from different sections of the airline. The current employee base stands at 31,500.
Apart from salary cuts, Air India is also looking at curtailing flights on some of the loss-making routes so as to reduce its losses which had doubled to Rs 5,548 crore in 2008-09.
A clearer picture on the wage and route cuts is likely to emerge after the conclusion of the Airline board meeting scheduled to be held in Mumbai on January 8 and 9. “Attempts will be made to ensure that there is parity in wages of the employees of the erstwhile Air India and Indian before any decision is taken on reducing the wages,” sources said.
The President of the Air Corporation Employees Union, Mr Dinakar Shetty, said that any wage cut was unacceptable.
There are other sections of employees in the airline who are open to the idea of a 10-15 per cent reduction, but have put the rider that the carrier should present a firm turnaround proposal before they accept any pay cuts.
31/12/09 Ashwini Phadnis/Shubhra Tandon/Business Line

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Categories: NACIL Jan 2010