Air India clears PLI payments for August

New Delhi/Mumbai: Badly struggling state –owned carrier Air India said Wednesday it would release the productivity-linked incentive (PLI) component of employee salaries for August on 5 December. Employee morale is at an all-time low with the carrier having failed to clear PLI since August of this year.

PLI constitutes nearly 50-60 per cent of the overall salaries of nearly 40,000 airline employees.

The carrier had stopped PLI payouts because of financial constraints.

Air India's general manager for finance HJ Mehtaji on Wednesday said in a letter to the employees, "It has been decided to release PLI payable in August 2011 on December 5."

"The delay was due to repayment of aircraft loans, interest on working capital to banks and other overdue vendor payments," he said.

Earlier, one of the carrier's two pilot unions threatened to strike work if interim settlements were not made. The Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) has demanded that the government must implement the Justice CS Dharmadhikari committee report by November-end and also stick to its assurance of expending the interim settlement for pilots.