Senior officials desert Air India in hour of crisis

New Delhi: Troubled national carrier Air India, which is on life support provided by the government in the form of temporary financial assistance, is staring at a serious manpower crisis with close to a dozen senior officials quitting in the last few months.
Faced with a flat or declining career path and possible salary cuts, several top executives of the debt-ridden carrier have opted for the airline’s voluntary retirement scheme (VRS). Several other executives have gone on long leave citing various reasons.
Executives directors P Senthil Kumar, DJ Chibber and HS Grover have quit Air India since the the present Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav took charge in May last year. Officials who are on leave for months include Anita Mitroo and Manjira Khurana.
The company currently has 26 EDs 75 GMs agaist sanctioned strength of 43 and 109, respectively. “There have been a large number of premature exits in the company. The management’s decision to cut performance-linked incentives (PLI) of EDs and functional directors have left people demotivated,” said an airline official.
The Air India management headed by chairman Arvind Jadhav had proposed a cut in PLIs of top company directors. While the payment of PLIs has been withheld for some time with a final decision on incentives is still pending. “You can not expect people to work in a salary band of Rs 35,000 to Rs 45,000 (in case PLI is withdrawn) after putting in 30 years of service,” the official said, requesting anonymity.
The airline introduced a VRS scheme last year for non-technical personnel besides offering its 32,000 staff the option of leave without pay in its bid to cut cost. As against 105-120 employess per aircraft in case of private carriers Air India has an aircraft manpower ratio of 1:230.
18/02/10 Nirbhay Kumar/Economic Times

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Categories: NACIL Feb 2010