india

Updated: Apr 23, 2020 15:26 IST

IndiGo, the country’s largest airline by market share, announced on Thursday that it has decided to roll back the earlier announcement of a pay cut in employee salaries for the month of April.

The decision is in deference to the Union government’s wishes, the top brass of the airline said.

“In deference to our Government’s wishes of not reducing pay during the lockdown, we have decided not to implement the previously announced pay cuts during the month of April. However, Excom members and SVPs have volunteered to take pay cuts this month. For everyone else, you can expect your April salaries to be paid without the pay cuts,” Indigo CEO Ronojoy Dutta said in an email to all employee of the company.

Earlier last month, IndiGo had announced that employees of the carrier would take a 25% pay cut along with Dutta himself leading from the front to take a pay cut.

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To boost the morale of the employees and to generate hope amid the severe financial crisis which has hit the Indian aviation sector, Dutta further said, “Another area where we can exercise control is in shaping the nature of the customer experience as we take to the skies again. We are working actively with the Government, the airports, and our competitor airlines in defining the nature of this experience.”

“Customers will probably start flying tentatively at first and we need to make sure that we instill enough confidence in the early users so that the first trickle of customers turns into a torrent,” he said.

India has been under a nationwide lockdown since March 25 to check the coronavirus pandemic. All domestic and international commercial passenger flights have been suspended for this period. As a result, revenues of the Indian aviation industry have been hit hard.

The aviation industry is in a complete lockdown mode with bookings being cancelled until any further orders. Aviation players across the globe have taken extreme measures to cope with the recent turmoil. Spice Jet’s Ajay Singh too took a 30% pay cut in the month of March owing to the coronavirus lockdown that has left the industry struggling to cope.