Delay a Flight, Suffer a Pay Cut — Air India’s Latest Push for On-Time Performance Comes Down on Employees
Joe Cortez February 04, 2015
Employees could face a dock in pay if deemed responsible for causing flight delays as Air India looks to improve its on-time performance.
Those employed by Air India are now working under a new human resources policy: Get caught delaying a flight, and receive a cut in pay. The Times of India reports the Indian flag carrier instituted the new policy at the beginning of February following a government probe into poor on-time performance.
The order, handed down directly from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, applies to all Air India employees, including pilots, flight attendants and ground crews. Under the edict, employees who cause a delay on account of reporting to work late face a monetary penalty for each occurrence. Those who continue their tardy behavior could face more serious penalties, including higher pay cuts and termination.
“[The Secretary of Aviation] has noted that flight delays are causing monetary losses besides loss of reputation to Air India,” Captain A.K. Govil, Air India’s executive director of operations, told employees in an internal bulletin published by the Times of India. “[The Secretary has directed that] accountability for delays has to be fixed.”
The move is the second attempt by the airline to curb the ongoing issue of flight delays. According to the Times of India, the ministry ordered Air India to hire an additional 800 cabin crew members in late January. Under the directive, the airline would have trained employees on reserve and ready to fly when a flight faces a risk of delay due to a cabin crew shortage.
While the plan is directed at improving on-time performance, not everybody is supportive of it. “Over 80 percent of flight delays are caused by a crippling shortage of cabin crew,” said an unnamed Air India official. “We are also short of pilots. Should the minister, secretary or chairman’s salary be cut if flight delays happen due to their failure to hire people in time?”
[Photo: Air India Facebook]
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I guess they first need to learn how to define a delay. I have traveled to India a few (about 15) times over last 5 years and have taken some domestic flights. Although I generally take Jet, but had to take AI at times (my company uses our own TA website and only Jet/AI are allowed in India). I took a AI flight from DEL-IXC (Chandigarh). This is supposed to be a 45 minutes flight. About an hour after the scheduled departure time, I asked the GA how much is the delay? He simply declined to admit the delay and told me that the air plane should be here any time soon. I felt incredibly dumb to even dare ask this to him. I have also taken a AI flight BLR-SIN once and I think it was a memorable flight. Everytime, I find myself frustrated at anything in my life, I can tell myself no matter how bad, it's still better than those 5 hours (BLR-SIN flight).
agree with emcampbe, I have read and been on a flight within India, where we were waiting for some politcian that was running late... (1 hour) ... hopefully they will take that into consideration
Can't fix stupid.
This is the same Ministry of Aviation that is part of the Government of India, which also requires AI (and tried to require, or at least pressure, all airlines in India) to hold flights for politicians that are running late for a flight (other passengers be damned). So now employees can be fined, but politicians are rewarded.
Stupid policy. How many people will die because of traffic accidents on the way to the airport because of this? It is AI's management who should be penalized for not hiring people who wish to show up on time - or paying them a sufficient salary to do so.