Performance pay: AI chief to meet panel on Friday

Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav is likely to hold a meeting on Friday with the committees reviewing the productivity-linked incentives of employees to chalk out a road map on the issue.

"The CMD is expected to meet the committees and discuss the road map for determining the PLI issue," sources familiar with the development told PTI in Mumbai.

The proposals of these committees would then be sent to the AI Board's Sub-Committee, they said.

The sub-committee comprises joint secretaries in the civil aviation ministry, Prashant Shukul and E K Bharat Bhushan, besides Jadhav himself.

Four committees had been set up in August under various functional directors of the airline, each focusing on a specific segment of the PLI to review the entire issue of performance payments after the unions rejected a 50 per cent 'unilateral' cut proposed by the National Aviation Company of India Limited management.

These committees, formed as part of Air India's turnaround plan, are examining the PLI issue of pilots, engineers, officers and other technical and non-technical staff in totality.

A time-bound operational and financial turnaround plan, envisaging pruning costs, increasing yields and making profits, has been worked out by the airline.

The national carrier, for which Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion) has been proposed by the Centre as part of equity infusion, has targetted a saving of Rs 1400 crore (Rs 14 billion) by March next through various cost-rationalisation measures, including pruning costs of its over 30,500 employees.

"Presently, we have achieved a saving of around Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion) from ongoing measures and we expect to save another Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) by end-March," Jadhav had said recently.