Defending its decision to implement ‘leave without pay’ (LWP) for its employees due to the Covid-19 pandemic, national carrier Air India on Friday referred to its scheme as a ‘win-win situation’ for both parties. It said that the while the scheme on the one hand gives freedom to its employees to engage themselves with another employer for the said period, the airline is able to save its cash flow on the other hand.

This comes after the national carrier was flooded with letters of criticism from its employees from all sections.

The airline said that in a challenging financial situation, it is taking recourse to several initiatives with a view to ensure that its flight operations continue.

The LWP scheme was introduced on Tuesday and according to the airline enables employees to avail the benefits of proceeding on leave without pay on voluntary basis. “It has been introduced for grant of leave without pay and allowances for permanent employees for a period of six months/two years, which is extendable upto 5 years,” the airline stated.

Recalling previous instances, Air India said that it had brought out similar LWP schemes in September 1998, in June 2009 and in August 2009 and employees had availed of the LWP scheme.

However, this time the addition in this scheme as compared to the earlier LWP scheme is that the airline management can pass an order requiring the employees to go on compulsory leave for a period of six months to two years, which is extendable upto five years.

The airline spokesperson said, “In the wake of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, there may be employees who are unable to attend their office duties in person on account of personal reasons. The LWP scheme enables employees to take a break from their office responsibility for a defined period of time with the approval of the management, while retaining their employment with the company. They will continue to avail facilities such as passage, medical and housing at specified rates.”

As on April 2020, Air India had over 14,000 employees that included around 1,800 pilots and around 4,000 cabin crew.

Justifying the scheme, the spokesperson also said that the LWP scheme provides opportunity to employees to take up alternative employment with the approval of the management during the period of the said leave.

“The LWP scheme is a win-win situation for both the management as well as employees as it provides flexibility to employees and simultaneously reduces the wage bill for the company. The Covid-19 outbreak has very seriously impacted the aviation sector and currently, the airline operations of the company are a small fraction of the prior Covid-19 level operations,” said a senior AI official.

Disagreeing with the management, a senior airline official said, “LWP scheme is to save money for the company not a weapon to settle scores with employees. This is going to affect the livelihood of many. Why doesn’t the airline make every employee of AI take LWP a few days every month? This way the burden can be shared. The motive of the top management is to save their money by snatching money from lower employees.”

The airline, however, assured to use the scheme sparingly and with complete fairness, and said that the selected names of employees that can be sent on mandatory LWP will be implemented after assessing their performances.