IndiGo hikes pilot salaries by a further 8%, restores overtime allowance

IndiGo has restored salaries of pilots and cabin crew by a further 8 per cent and made changes to its human resource (HR) policies as it prepares for a busy festival season ahead. India’s largest airline plans to enhance capacity by at least 60 per cent, compared to the previous year.

The changes come after more than half the flights operated by IndiGo faced delays last week as a large number of cabin crew members reported sick just hours before departure. For July, the airline has budgeted for an average of 1,550 flights daily and utilise its aircraft for around 13 hours.

“…All crew members reporting sick have to mandatorily visit base for verification without fail,” Suman Chopra, senior vice-president, inflight services, wrote to the airline’s cabin crew this week.

Salaries have become a thorny issue for India’s budget carrier. Despite partial restoration of wages, employees remain disgruntled since their workload has increased significantly, with IndiGo operating more flights than what it did before Covid-19 grounded travel.

Indigo Chief Executive Officer Ronojoy Dutta had said, “We are in an inflationary environment. We have gone through a very difficult period — pay cuts and partial restoration of pay. We have to address the same.”

The airline has made changes to its HR policies to reinstate the work pattern of crew under which they will earn more, but there will be fewer leaves.

In May 2020, IndiGo had revised its pilot pay structure to slash salaries by as much as up to 40 per cent. Many of the airline’s senior pilots had received emails from the company’s leave planner, asking them to choose from two options, each involving a pay cut.

One included a pay structure with 42 annual leaves and the second had pilots take one week off every month. They used to have a package that included 22 days of annual leave. The airline will reinstate both programmes, which had been temporarily halted.

Due to curtailed operations in 2020 and 2021, pilots were shifted to a one-week off/one-week on per-month pattern. Over time, allowances not paid for the past two years have been reinstated to pre-Covid levels.
 

For cabin crew, the airline is planning to bring in a career progression policy where they will have an opportunity to graduate to the Airbus A320 aircraft from ATR.

Crew operating A320 earn more and enjoy allowances. With the Tata-led Air India hiring aggressively and two new airlines — Akasa Air and Jet Airways — looking to start operations this year, IndiGo expects higher attrition levels among its crew.

The airline is hiring aggressively for replacement and expansion. Around 1,500 in the cabin crew are under training and will join operations in the next few weeks, said a senior executive.

As demand for air travel increases, allowing airlines to deploy more of their fleet, pilots seek reversal of paycuts. Despite partial restoration of salaries, pilots across airlines remain a disgruntled lot, creating challenges for managers.

Tata Group — the new owner of Air India — has restored employee salaries by almost 75 per cent, compared to pre-Covid levels. Another Tata Group airline, Vistara, reinstated its pilots’ salaries and flying allowance to pre-pandemic levels.

According to an internal communication, SpiceJet has also hiked the salary of its captains and first officers by 10 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively. The salary hike for trainers at SpiceJet stands at 20 per cent.

“Airlines are back to operating capacity of pre-Covid levels. Our duty hours have significantly increased and in some cases more hectic than what they were before Covid-19. Why not restore full salary?” asked a senior commander, pointing out that airlines have restored full salaries of employees of other departments.