On December 3, 2020, IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta reportedly announced the airline’s plan to surrender the “leave without pay” scheme within all company’s departments, as the airline has reached 70% of pre-COVID-19 operational levels.
The airline announced the decision the same day when Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced on social media that India’s domestic carriers were allowed to increase operations from existing 70% to 80% of pre-COVID-19 levels.
Domestic operations recommenced with 30K passengers on 25 May & have now touched a high of 2.52 lakhs on 30 Nov 2020. @MoCA_GoI is now allowing domestic carriers to increase their operations from existing 70% to 80% of pre-COVID approved capacity.@PMOIndia @DGCAIndia
— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) December 3, 2020
Under IndiGo’s mandatory “leave without pay” scheme, which was implemented in June 2020, the staff within all airline’s departments had to take from 1.5 to 5 days off without being paid. In July 2020, the number of days was increased to 10.
“At this point of time, it looks like we are on a path to a graduated and measured recovery,” Dutta wrote in an email to employees. “In anticipation of the improved revenue that I know we can deliver, we are removing the Leave without Pay across all departments from 1 January 2021,” the Times of India reported. However, Dutta still expected challenges of reviving international air travel to continue.