Air India to Implement revise privilege leave policy from April

According to a release issued on Wednesday, the maximum limit for privilege leaves (PLs) for all employees will be 60 days in the fiscal year starting April 1.

Air India to Implement revise privilege leave policy from April

Air India, the Tata Son’s owned aviation company, will revise its leave policies for permanent and salaried contract employees starting next fiscal year to bring them in line with “prevailing market conditions,” according to an internal memo.

According to a release issued on Wednesday, the maximum limit for privilege leaves (PLs) for all employees will be 60 days in the fiscal year starting April 1.

The revised policy allows an employee to accumulate up to 60 days of leave at the end of a fiscal year, or encash in the same number of privilege leaves.

Air India will also introduce a new leave policy for its employees. “We are in the process of comprehensively revising our leave policy to bring it in line with prevailing market practices. As part of this process, the limits for accrual and redemption of privilege leave (PL) will be revised,” Air India Chief Human Resources Officer Suresh Dutt Tripathi said in the statement.

According to the release, there will be changes in the leave accrual policy for permanent staff.

Currently, permanent employees can accrue or encash in up to 300 PL. For employees on fixed-term contracts – pilots, cabin crew and ground staff – there is no option to cash in their leave. While a pilot can accumulate PL 150, cabin crew and ground staff may only accumulate PL 60, the official said.

The airline has about 11,000 employees, including flying and non-flying personnel.

To illustrate, the memo said that if the PL currently accrued is 250 days on March 31, 60 days can be carried over to the next fiscal year, which begins April 1. The remaining 190 PL will then be encashed, it said.

All employees who have opted for voluntary retirement and are laid off will also be eligible to cash in their full and final severance pay,” the statement said. In addition, the airline said that all full-time employees will be able to redeem PL credits accrued beyond 60 days.

“As a special case this year, PLs not yet paid for the current fiscal year will also be redeemed for all employees (permanent and full-time),” it said.

In the future, the airline will also harmonize PL entitlements for permanent employees and employees with permanent contracts. Both the accumulation and target limits for redemption will be uniform for permanent and fixed-term employees from April, the statement said.

On March 17, the airline made an offer of voluntary redundancy to its non-flying staff, the second such offer by the Tata Group since it took over the loss-making airline.