AI mulls giving LWP to 15k employees

Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 9:10 am

Facing the heat of the financial crisis that has hit the aviation sector, state-owned Air India today said it is considering a plan to give 3-5 years leave without pay to about 15,000 of its staff.

“We are planning to offer leave without pay for three to five years. We can consider it for about 15,000 employees,” Air India CMD Raghu Menon said. He, however, said those who take up the offer to go on leave would be taken back if they desire so at the same seniority and last drawn pay.

Earlier, battling a clawing downturn enveloping the aviation industry, Jet Airways had yesterday announced sacking of 1,900 of its employees across all operations. However, Kingfisher boss Vijay Mallya has vowed not to cut jobs and said that his airline has no surplus cabin crew, which means that no redenduncies will be required.

Meanwhile, sympathising with the sacked Jet Airways employees, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel today said he would hold talks with all airlines to find a way out of the downturn in the industry caused by high fuel costs and economic slowdown.

“I sympathize with those young boys and girls who lost their jobs. I will talk to all airlines to see that such large scale loss of jobs does not happen and try to find a way out,” Patel said. (Read more)

The industry has been wobbly for about four months now, ever since fuel prices started to rise. This made airlines hike fares which, in turn, has affected passenger traffic and the bottomline of companies.

This wobbliness has turned into a tailspin now with oil companies cutting back on credit and with the liquidity crunch making banks shy of giving credit.

( This post is from an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by APakistanNews.Com.)

AI mulls giving LWP to 15k employees

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