New Delhi, July 22: Cash-strapped Air India has announced a cut in allowances of its employees with retrospective effect from April 1, 2020, till further review. As per an office order, the reductions in allowances has been done as per the directions of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and following approval from the Board of Directors of Air India Ltd. Employees with a gross monthly salary of Rs 25,000, however, won't face cuts. Captain Rajwinder Singh Sandhu Appointed Air India Director of Operations.

Air India has decided to slash the rate of allowances other than DPE allowances by 40 percent of the approved allowances. These include flying allowance, executive flying allowance, special pay wide-body allowance, domestic layover allowance, quick return allowance, high altitude allowance, check allowance, instructor allowance, examiner allowance and additional landing allowance. Air India to Pay Compensation to Kin of Its Employees Who Died Due to COVID-19.

Flying allowance will be paid on actual hours flown by an individual pilot in a month. However, as a special case, all pilots available for flying will be paid fixed 20 hours of flying allowance or actuals, whichever is higher in a month, during Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 of the financial year 2020-21 on the revised flying allowance rate. Simulator training hours will be paid on the revised rate of flying allowance.

The overtime rate beyond 70 hours in a month shall be 125 per cent of the revised rate of flying allowance, while layover allowance at stations outside India will be payable as per the notified government rates. This is an across the board cut in allowances for all employees, rather than just the pilots and the other flying staff. However, lDA, HRA and other allowances linked to basic pay will remain unchanged.

For general category officers, salary and allowances (i.e. basic, IDA and HRA linked to basic pay) will remain unchanged. However, the other allowances will be reduced by 50 percent. For general category staff, allowances will be reduced by 30 percent and same is the case with operators. For the permanent and contractual cabin crew, allowances will be reduced by 20 percent.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 22, 2020 09:06 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).