Air India Lowers Age For Voluntary Retirement, Cabin Crew To Unskilled Workers Covered

Air India has lowered the age to bring more employees under its voluntary retirement as the Tata Group, its new owner, has started the process to revive the carrier.

The VRS scheme has now been relaxed to include employees above 40 years from the earlier threshold of 55 years, according to a circular issued by the airline to its employees. BQ Prime has reviewed the circular.

The airline earlier allowed permanent employees aged 55 or with 20 years of service to avail VRS. The scheme has now been extended to cabin crew, clerical and allied staff and unskilled employees.

An email to Tata Sons Pvt. seeking comment remained unanswered.

Before Tata Group's takeover, salaries at Air India were higher than the industry even as the airline struggled to repay debt and required government support to stay afloat. Talace Pvt., a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons, bought it for a total deal value of Rs 18,000 crore. Air India operates a fleet of 128 aircraft.

The airline has offered ex-gratia payments to all employees who apply between June 1 and July 31 as a one-time benefit. The circular did not specify the amounts. It had 8,156 employees at the end of March 2021.

In the pre-Covid year ended March 2020, the carrier's standalone employee benefit expenses stood at Rs 3225.4 crore, which declined to Rs 2,255.7 crore in FY21, according to its annual report.

Air India incurred a standalone loss of over Rs 7,000 crore in FY21 and its revenue more than halved to Rs 12,104 crore.

Tata Sons recently named Campbell Wilson as the chief executive officer and managing director of Air India. Wilson was CEO of Scoot, the wholly owned, low-cost subsidiary of Singapore Airlines.