Kingfisher Airlines downgrades aircraft commanders –slashes pilot salaries

Mumbai: With Jet Airways burning its fingers with cost-cutting initiatives, it's now the turn of Kingfisher Airlines to test the waters with a series of cost-cutting measures. Most of these involve huge salary cuts, particularly those of trainee pilots.

"With a view to tiding over the ongoing turbulence in the aviation industry and keeping in mind the reduction in capacity deployed, Kingfisher Airlines has effected a downward revision in emoluments of a small pool of 50 trainee co-pilots. These trainee co-pilots will continue to remain on the payroll of the company and will all continue to enjoy and be able to avail of the full benefits and privileges that are available to employees of the company," said the airline in its statement.

It's being given to understand that about 70 trainee pilots will see their monthly salaries come down from Rs1.95 lakh (freshly endorsed ATR/A320 pilots) and Rs90,000 (trainees on probation) to a stipend of Rs20,000 per month. The salary slash will also include commanders of wide-bodied A340 pilots.

According to airline officials, about 14 commanders and 30 first officers trained and endorsed on A340 aircraft will also lose Rs1.20 lakh each from their monthly salaries as they will be downgraded to single-aisle A320 aircraft. If these commanders and officers had continued on the A340, they would have drawn Rs60,000 more per month after their endorsement and another Rs60,000 after completing 500 hours of flying on the A340.

The downgrade of senior pilots and commanders of A340 aircraft comes even as the airline has scaled back ambitious plans to launch international operations this year.

According to airline sources at least a hundred senior pilots, trained on the A330 and A340, have been on the ground over the last seven months and receiving their salaries.

Kingfisher had already carried out a retrenchment exercise some time back terminating services of 300 of its employees from the non-operations area. There is some concern amongst crew that after salary downgrades it is likely that termination may follow if the situation does not improve.