Air India comes up with voluntary leave without pay plan

As part of its cost-cutting measures, Air India (AI) management today announced a voluntary leave without pay scheme for its employees in consultation with the unions.

The scheme allows a permanent employee to take leave for up to two years without pay or allowances and return to join at the same level where he or she left, a notice issued today said.

The decision of the management came a few days after the unions suggested several schemes, including the LWP, to cut costs while maintaining the interests of the employees.

"We are thankful to our CMD for accepting our proposal so soon. This would definitely save some amount for our company," V J Deka, regional general secretary of Aviation Industry Employees' Guild (AIEG), told PTI while reacting to the move.

An employee, opting for leave, could work in another airline or any allied service but would require to get permission from the AI management. However, he or she would not be allowed to work in the government or another public sector unit.

Permission from the management to work in another airline would be essential in order to "avoid conflict of business interest", the notice said.

Under the scheme, an employee's leave could be extended up to five years at the discretion of the management, the notice said, adding that interested employees would have to apply before July 31.

Also, if an employee takes up employment within the country or abroad he or she would have to inform the airline in writing.

According to the scheme, an employee would lose his or her pay, dearness and other allowances, benefits, perquisites and productivity linked incentives. Also they would have go without other service benefits such as earned leave, pension, gratuity, provident fund, increment etc.

Apart from it, they would also lose their seniority with reference to juniors who could get promoted to such grades before they rejoin their duty, the notice said, adding the employees would be eligible for promotions only after one year of rejoining.

The company, however, has allowed the employees to avail of medical and passage benefits as per the rules during the period of leave.

The sick leave, casual leave and privilege leaves of the employees would be frozen and such leaves would not accrue during the period they are on leave.

The national carrier has been suffering a loss of about Rs 5,000 crore and decided to defer the payment of their employee's salaries by a fortnight. It also asked the senior officials to forgo their salaries for the month of July.