india

Updated: Apr 15, 2020 15:36 IST

Vistara airlines will be sending its employees on compulsory leave without pay for three days between April 15 and April 30 as a measure to preserve jobs and conserve cash flow, announced its CEO Leslie Thng.

Extending the nationwide lockdown till May 3 to combat the coronavirus disease, Prime Minister Modi urged companies to be sensitive towards people and not sack them during this difficult period.

“As part of a number of steps we are taking to conserve cash and save costs, we had to make the difficult decision of further reducing our staff costs with the objective of preserving jobs.

For the period between 15- 30 April 2020, about 30% of Vistara’s workforce will take compulsory no-pay leave of one to three days, depending on employment grades (three days for senior-most employees). This decision does not impact the remainder 70% of Vistara staff,” said Vistara spokesperson.

The exercise will be carried out at three levels. The first grade will take 3 days’ leave without pay, the next grade level will take two days’ leave without pay and then the third grade will have to take a day off with no pay.

On March 27, the airline had also introduced compulsory leave without pay for up to three days between April 1 and April 14 for the same set of senior employees.

The compulsory no pay leave will affect around 1,200 employees in senior grades.

The remaining 2,800 employees of the airline such as members of cabin crew and ground handling services will be unaffected.

“With the announcement by the government of India on extending the lockdown, we continue to suspend all our domestic and international operations till 3rd May 2020 and this further impacted significantly on our cash flow with no revenue being generated over an extended period of time,” Thng said in an email to employees.