Air India Sacks 48 Pilots With Immediate Effect

New Delhi: A few weeks after asserting that no employee will be laid off, Air India has terminated the services of 48 pilots.

The pilots have been dismissed with immediate effect. However, they will be paid full month’s salary, according to a report in The Hindu.

“You will stand released from the services of the company w.e.f close of office on August 13. You would appreciate that the company is already severely strained financially. Further, the global COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in extraordinary and exceptional circumstances by gravely reducing the commercial functioning of the company leading to redundancies. The company is incurring huge net losses and doesn’t have the financial ability to pay,” the termination letter stated.

In some cases, Air India informed certain employees that an earlier resignation offered by them in 2019, but later withdrawn, was being accepted by the company even though the revocation of the resignation letter was okayed by the airline.

In other cases, the pilots had submitted their resignation letters six months back, which had not been accepted by the Chairman and Managing Director.

On July 23 Air India took to Twitter to announce, “Unlike other carriers which have laid off a large number of their employees, no employee of Air India will be laid off.”

Air India has been in the news after a Dubai-Kozhikode flight crashed after overshooting the runway at Kozhikode airport a week ago, killing the two pilots and a few passengers.