Covid effect: Salary deferred for 60 per cent of GoAir’s staff

Nearly 60% employees of GoAir’s will be put on “temporary leave without pay”, the airline’s promoters Nusli and Jeh Wadia in a joint letter informed employees. April salaries of close to 2,500 lower-grade employees were paid. “GoAir released full salaries to about 2,500 less fortunate employees, equivalent to 40% of our workforce, with the remaining employees getting paid on a graded and deferred basis,” the Wadias said in a letter to employees.

Airlines have been forced to suspend passenger operations since March 25 during the nationwide lockdown to slow down the spread of Covid-19. GoAir had “very little revenue” between March 17 and 24, “with nil revenue thereafter”, the mail said. “With no inflow of cash, which we now anticipate will continue through the end of May, a period of over 10 weeks, and with no support forthcoming yet from either the government or the banking system, we 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 read.