To slash costs, SpiceJet sends 80 pilots on leave without pay

The pilots will remain eligible for all other employee benefits such as insurance benefits and employee leave travel during the furlough period, the airline said

New Delhi: SpiceJet has sent 80 pilots on leave without pay for three months on Tuesday as the distressed airline battles a liquidity crunch amid flight restrictions imposed by the aviation regulator.

The move will help rationalise the pilot strength vis-à-vis aircraft fleet, the airline said. (HT)

“Forty pilots and 40 co-pilots flying Boeing 737s were sent on leave without pay starting Tuesday for three months, and were not given any reason for it,” an airline official said. “These pilots are majorly the ones who joined the airline recently,” another official said. Both declined to be named.

The pilots will remain eligible for all other employee benefits such as insurance benefits and employee leave travel during the furlough period, the airline said. It is a temporary measure to rationalise cost, it said.

The Guguram-based airline that is facing a liquidity crunch said the measure was in line with its policy of not retrenching any employee, which it followed even during the pandemic, adding that the move will help rationalise pilot strength vis-à-vis its aircraft fleet.

Even after placing pilots on leave without pay, SpiceJet will have enough pilots to operate its full schedule as and when the restriction on flights by the regulator is lifted, the budget carrier said.

The Directorate of Civil Aviation had directed SpiceJet to cut short its summer schedule by half for eight weeks from March 27 to October 29. This was done on safety concerns after several of its planes reported technical malfunctions.

“Not more than 35 aircraft are currently being operated by the airline,” an airline pilot said. “It is not sure if the airline has taken this step for three months, or for a period more than that.”

SpiceJet reported a loss of ₹784 crore for the quarter ended June 30, compared to a loss of ₹731 crore a year earlier. The company had also reported a loss of ₹485 crore for the quarter ending March. It recently announced the appointment of Ashish Kumar as chief financial officer.

The struggling carrier said in a statement that SpiceJet had in 2019 inducted more than 30 aircraft following the grounding of the 737 MAX aircraft.

“The airline had continued with its planned pilot induction programme in the hope that the MAX would be back in service soon. However, the prolonged grounding of the MAX fleet resulted in many excess pilots at SpiceJet. We will be inducting MAX aircraft shortly and these pilots will be back in service as the induction begins,” it said.