Go First cabin crew, technicians go on leave against salary cuts

The unrest over salaries in the aviation industry has spread to Go First, where nearly 70 cabin crew across the airline’s network went on mass sick leave on Monday to protest salary cuts, and technicians entered their second day of protest leave.

Go First’s technicians, who maintain aircraft to ensure they are airworthy, went on mass sick leave at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru on Sunday and stayed away from work on Monday too. They have also called for this form of protest on Tuesday at Ranchi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad airports in addition to the four major airports.

According to a source from the airline’s engineering team, the anger is over low salaries. Though technicians have not faced pay cuts, they typically earn ₹18,000 to ₹20,000 and some recent increments offered by the airline were of mere “₹40-50”. “We work in extremely hazardous circumstances often with little training. The job of a technician is not very different from aircraft maintenance engineers but they get paid between 1/15th to 1/6th of the latter even though their role demands a high level of technical skills,” said the person who also shared similar concerns over salaries and nominal increments.

Delay in salaries

It is reliably learnt that nearly 70 cabin crew at the airline have also called in sick. There was also panic over salaries across all sections of employees, including pilots, which was not deposited till late on Monday. A pilot said he had been drawing a salary of ₹60,000 for the past two years, when his salary pre-pandemic was ₹4 lakh per month.

A Go First spokesperson said salaries had been delayed at the airline since the pandemic, but didn’t respond to an email query on the impact of the mass sick leave by technicians and cabin crew.

At IndiGo too technicians at stations such as Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai were on “mass sick leave” for the fourth straight day.

“I paid ₹5 lakh for my training to become a technician and joined the company on a salary of ₹8,000, and now earn ₹16,000. During the pandemic, we faced steep cuts and were paid only our basic salary of ₹8,000. But now that work is more than before, and the airline continues to spend money on its expansion and acquiring 2-3 planes every month, it is time to revise our salaries. At the current rate of inflation it is very difficult for us to meet our daily requirements,” said a technician at IndiGo on condition of anonymity.

Though there were attempts by the management to resolve the issue, including by offering a transport allowance of ₹1,000, sources among technicians say they have decided to continue their protest until they get a revised salary.

“I am pleased to share that we have an agreement on rationalising the anomalies caused by the pandemic. The letters reflecting this rationalisation will be issued to you over the next two weeks and will be with effect from August 1, 2022,” IndiGo’s Senior Vice President Sanjay Gupta wrote to his team on Monday evening.

DGCA’s stand

A  Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) official said, “The airlines have reported that there is no impact on flight schedule as the flights are cleared by aircraft maintenance engineers. The issue of salaries is a matter between the airlines and their employees, and we have been told that there are discussions to resolve it.”

On July 2, nearly 300 cabin crew of IndiGo went on “mass sick leave” to protest against pay cuts imposed due to COVID-19, which had not been reinstated despite the pick up in demand which was 93% of pre-pandemic levels in May. This led to 55% of airline’s flights being delayed on the day. Within days of the protest, the airline announced 8% restoration of salaries for pilots and reinstatement of flying allowances for cabin crew. In April, IndiGo’s pilots had threatened to go on mass sick leave, but the airline managed to nip it in the bud by suspending some of them.