What does an airline struggling to pull itself out of the deep, deep red do? It doesn't look at Air India, that's for sure.
For an airline that is Rs 44,000 crore in debt, and needs to milk the Centre for a few thousand crores every year just to survive, Air India has become even more liberal with its free travel policy for employees and their extended families.
Starting this year, the airline has hugely expanded the free ticket handout it gives employees, more than doubling the entitlement for employees up to officer level, and tripling it for those at the top.
Sweetening this deal further is the fact that extended family members now eligible to travel practically free on Air India include brothers, sisters, as well as sons and daughters-in-law. The taxpayer pays for it, as usual.
And all this in an airline that is set to report losses of almost Rs 4,000 crore this fiscal.
The loss-making airline has in place one of the most liberal systems, called Under Passage Entitlement-Vacation Travel (Staff on Leave), to dole out free tickets to its army of 24,000 permanent employees, which gives one of the highest aircraft-workforce ratios in the world.
The carrier has similar benefits for free travel for as many as 12,000 retired employees and their families too.
This latest largesse will cost the airline a few hundred crore rupees more every year now, something it can hardly afford.
Read News in full 16/01/14 Sanjay Singh/Daily Mail
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