Air India chief meets officials on employee incentive issue

With Air India considering slashing incentive payments to over 31,000 employees, its Chairman and Managing Director Arvind Jadhav today met top Civil Aviation Ministry officials and held a series of meetings to finalise this and other cost-cutting measures.

Jadhav had also met Civil Aviation Secretary M Madhavan Nambiar, days ahead of the airline's board meeting, which was earlier scheduled for September 17. The board is now slated to meet early next week, official sources said.

The board is likely to consider the company's capital budget and working capital limits along with the issue of productivity-linked incentive (PLI), which forms a large portion of the employees' monthly salary. The total annual wage bill of the airline is about Rs 350 crore.

There was speculation that the national carrier may not rush through the decision on cutting PLI and allowances in view of the upcoming festival season.

Air India had earlier formed a five-member committee, headed by Director (Personnel) Anup K Srivastava, to look into its decision to slash PLI and flying allowance by half. The proposal was strongly opposed by the employees.

The committee, which submitted its recommendations earlier this month, was tasked to work out modalities and draw parameters for a "revised PLI scheme" for different categories of employees like pilots, cabin crew, engineers and non- technical categories.