India’s second largest carrier SpiceJet will not be paying its pilots salaries for April and May, SpiceJet’s chief of flight operations Gurcharan Arora has told employees. Pilots who have been operating cargo flights, however, will be paid for the number of hours flown.
The move comes after passenger flights have been suspended for a month amid a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Cash-strapped SpiceJet had introduced pay cuts from March. Currently, 20% of the airline’s pilots are flying and 200 pilots have flown over 550 flights since March 2020. “Over the coming weeks we intend to increase the number of aircraft flying (cargo + cargo on seat) to more than 50% and the number of pilots flying to 100%,” Arora said.
