Over the last 10 days, India’s largest airline IndiGo has seen two bouts of disruption caused by groups of its employees calling in sick at work. Earlier this month, members of the cabin crew went on leave en masse, and last week a group of aircraft technicians reported sick. Obviously they can’t all be falling ill at the same time. What’s happening? A significant number of cabin crew members went on leave on July 2 at the same time as rival airlines including Air India, AirAsia India, AkasaAir and Jet Airways are conducting their recruitment drives. The aircraft maintenance engineers called in sick to protest the salaries being paid to them by IndiGo. What has been the impact of these staffers going on leave? When the cabin crew members went on leave, it resulted in more than half of IndiGo’s flights getting delayed. The on-time performance of the airline has improved since then. Company executives have said there was no impact of the technicians calling in sick. How has IndiGo responded to this action by cabin crew and technicians? While IndiGo did not offer an official comment on either of these developments, just days after the cabin crew mass leave, IndiGo restored salaries of pilots and cabin crew by 8 per cent. The airline had cut salaries by about 28 per cent during Covid19 pandemic, and this was the second partial rollback — the first one also being 8 per cent. The company also mandated that its crew members reporting sick should visit their respective bases for verification. Is this kind of action which obviously inconveniences passengers, allowed? The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had sought a report from the airline following the significant delays that were caused after cabin crew members went on leave. In its response to the regulator, the airline said it was a one-off incident, even as the regulator directed it to compensate the passengers who suffered as a result of the delays as per the laid down regulations.
