GoAir pays salaries to 40% staff, rest to be paid in graded manner, reveals promoters letter to employees

Go Air has retained all its employees but salaries are being paid on a graded basis. A joint letter by promoters Nusli Wadia and Jeh Wadia to employees said the aviation firm had paid 40 percent of its employees. The 40 percent is equivalent to 2,500 employees of the low-cost airline. The rest will be paid on a graded and deferred basis, it said. With no cashflow, the Wadias were left with no alternative but to make the ‘unfortunate and sad decision to pay the March earned salaries over March and April,’ the letter said.

According to sources, @goairlinesindia
chairman has written to employees about the cashflow hit the co is facing in wake of the #COVIDー19 pandemic, says anticipate no cash inflow through the end of May pic.twitter.com/DlVWVjuW5b

— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) May 4, 2020

The copy of the letter, which has been published by Moneycontrol reveals the airline has been forced to send a substantial portion of employees on temporary leave without pay. “Our Board, Chairman and MD draw no remuneration whatsoever,” the promoters said in the letter. While Nusli Wadia is the Chairman of the airline, his son Jeh is on the Board. Vinay Dube is the CEO. In April, the low-cost budget airline had said, a majority of 5,500-odd employees of GoAir will now be on “leave without pay” (LWP) till 3 May as its entire fleet remains grounded in the wake of the extended lockdown, the airline has said. The airline will keep paying a small number of employees on payroll to restart operations when the government allows flights, people in the know said, according to a report in Reuters citing Bloomberg report In March, the Wadia Group-owned airline asked its employees to go on leave without pay on a rotational basis besides cutting their salaries. “The lockdown has been further extended till 3 May, and with this extension, our fleet continues to be completely grounded. Hence, we are constrained to request you to proceed on ’leave without pay’ till 3 May,” GoAir said in a communication to its employees, according to a PTI report.