IndiGo will lay off 10 per cent of its staff. The move by the country’s largest airline comes amid months of  restrictions imposed by the government to curb the coroanvirus pandemic, which has affected the civil aviation industry and forced businesses across industries to trim operations.
“The current pandemic has impacted many industries around the world, amongst which aviation has been one of the sectors that has been impacted the hardest,” IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta said.
“It is clear that we will need to bid a painful adieu to 10 per cent of our workforce. It is for the first time in the history of IndiGo that we have undertaken such a painful measure. This is indeed a very unfortunate turn of events from the optimistic growth trajectory we had carved out for ourselves just six months ago;  but this pandemic has forced us to re-evaluate our best laid plans,” the CEO said in a statement.
Though the airline had also cut pays across its personnel, these steps were not enough to offset the decline in revenues.
Apart from IndiGo, all its peers, including Air India, Vistara, SpiceJet and GoAir have been forced to take similar steps to reduce costs. But this is the first formal announcement of a layoff by a domestic airline.
Domestic flights were suspended in March, coinciding with the national lockdown to limit the spread of coronavirus. The government later resumed domestic flights on May 25, asking carriers to limit their operations to one-third of this schedule. Though this limit was raised to 45 percent, airlines continue to operate at about 30 percent.