Air India Becoming More Generous to Employees

Thursday, 23rd January 2014 at 08:13am

What do you think ailing airlines do if they want to stem losses and prevent further bleeding? Of course, they resort to desperate measures such as laying off rank-and-file employees and selling properties that are not generating income etc. Lo and behold, Air India is trying to beg to differ.

The heavily indebted state-owned airline seems like unaffected at all by the financial crisis it is going through for quite some time already. Seems like dipping further down the mire is not a major concern at all to the management if its sudden generosity to its employees is any measure.

Lately, the beleaguered airline created a buzz when it announced that starting this year, it will expand its free ticket handout to its employees across the board, meaning from rank-and-file to the highest position.

This amidst the heavy losses and mounting debts that the airline has been facing for the last seven years. Against all odds, Air India is trying to show to the people that no amount of losses and debts can prevent them from becoming generous to its employees in the expense of the people's money.

Air India has been giving its employees up to two free tickets and up to 5 heavily-discounted tickets every year. This year, it will gallantly make itself more generous as it will give out up to, hold your breath, 12 free tickets to ordinary staff-level employees and up to 24 free tickets to sitting directors.

The additional free tickets is extended to immediate family members of the employee like his/her siblings, parents and children and even in-laws.

This generosity is ill-timed as the airline is currently buried in debt of more than Rs 44,000 crore and losses of Rs4,000 crore.

The state-owned airline, while facing huge debts and losses, has kept its more than 12,000 retired employees and their families enjoy free travel.

Air India has a liberal system in terms of giving out privileges to its more than 24,000-strong employees, which it called Under Passage Entitlement-Vacation Travel (Staff on Leave). This makes the state-owned carrier among the world's airlines with the highest aircraft-to-workforce ratio.

With the latest largesse, Air India will need a few hundred crore rupees more in its annual budget which it can barely afford.

By: Pete Lee.