On day 3 of “mass sick leave” at GoFirst called by aircraft technicians, the protest has spread to atleast 14 stations. Nearly, 110 cabin crew have also reported sick.
GoFirst’s technicians in Bengaluru, Pune, Port Blair, Kannur, Nagpur, Chandigarh, Ranchi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Goa, Hyderabad and Kolkata have joined the protest. Sources say at most of these stations nearly 90% of technicians are part of the agitation, while in Kolkata nearly 50% have joined.
The stir started on Sunday evening, with technicians in Delhi staying away from work. On Monday, they were joined by technicians from Mumbai and Bengaluru as well as 70 cabin crew calling in sick, said sources. On Tuesday, 110 cabin crew reported sick, employee sources said.
The airline has, however, denied that cabin crew went on sick leave, too.
Their anger is over low salaries, particularly after being not paid for nearly 18 months by the airline. A technician earns a monthly salary of ₹19,403, and a senior technician earns ₹22,098.
“We were on leave without pay from March 2020 to November 2021. The airline would call a technician for seven days and make him carry out maintenance work because it wanted to cut its expenses on employees,” said a technician at the airline who is also part of the agitation.
Meanwhile, at IndiGo where too the technicians are on a mass sick leave since Friday, the management’s olive branch has failed to convince the protesters to join back work. At IndiGo,too, a technician earns between ₹18,000 to ₹20,000 and the demand is for better pay especially since there has been no raise for three to four years and many suffered a steep pay cut and received a salary of ₹5,000 to ₹8,000 in April and May 2020 when there were no flights during the first nationwide lockdown imposed after the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
