Financial Express | IndiGo’s post-lockdown plan: No food in flights, airport buses to fill only half of seats

Apr 10,2020

Budget carrier IndiGo has come up with a post-lockdown plan as the domestic carriers look forward to flying again. CEO Ronojoy Dutta has said the airline will not serve meals in the flights for sometime and is also reducing the airport bus service to half the capacity as it will fill only 50% seats, PTI reported. As the nation has been put under a 21-day lockdown in the view of the coronavirus pandemic, domestic flight services have also come to a grinding halt. The government had earlier suspended all domestic and international flight operations to contain the spread of the virus. The same has also severely impacted the revenues of domestic airlines.

As the airlines struggle to stay afloat during these trying times, domestic carriers such as IndiGo have also announced pay cuts for employees. The topmost management of budget carrier IndiGo is the first to bear a pay cut in their salary and CEO Ronojoy Dutta is also taking a 25% lesser salary starting this month. With revenues drying up, the airline announced salary cuts for its senior employees. “With the precipitous drop in revenues, the very survival of the airline industry is now at stake,” Ronojoy Dutta said in an email to the IndiGo employees in March. SpiceJet also later announced pay cuts for its staff to the tune of 10-30%. CMD Ajay Singh also took a 30% pay cut in salary for March. As coronavirus has dealt a major blow to the economy, aviation remains the worst hit industry due to lockdown, according to a FICCI report.

Meanwhile, Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri took stock of the situation and said that “his heart goes out” to people who are suffering due to coronavirus. He also assured the sector that the government will lift the restrictions on the flight operations as soon as it is confident that the coronavirus situation is under control, he said in a tweet this week.