Mumbai: IndiGo has announced a bonus for its pilots and cabin crew for the fifth consecutive year. Pilots and crew will receive five percent of their annual salary as a bonus along with the April month pay.
IndiGo is the most profitable domestic airline. In FY 2014 it recorded a profit of Rs 317 crore. It is also the fastest growing domestic airline with a fleet of 93 Airbus A320 planes.
It is also the highest recruiter amongst the local airlines with over 10, 500 employees on its rolls. This includes about 1,300 pilots and 2300 cabin crew. Last year it hired 2,400 staff.
However the airline is also losing pilots to Gulf airlines and the bonus will also help the airline to retain talent and check attrition. Last year 40 pilots quit the airline. This year number of pilot resignations has been less. A majority of pilots who are leaving the airline are junior commanders seeking career progression and transition on wide body aircraft such as Boeing 777 or Airbus A380.
Junior commanders earn about Rs 4-4.5 lakh per month while first officers earn about Rs 2-2.5 lakh per month. An IndiGo spokesperson confirmed the payment of bonus to pilots and crew.
“This is in line with our past practice. IndiGo has declared a bonus to its crew in seven out of the eight years of its existence. This is the fifth year in a row that IndiGo has paid out an annual bonus to its crew members. Non-crew employees are given regular performance based annual increments,” the airline spokesperson said.
