Lockdown 2.0: Vistara Sends Senior Staff on Compulsory Leave Without Pay For up to 3 Days

New Delhi: As the Centre extended lockdown till May 3, Vistara Airlines on Wednesday said its senior employees will go on compulsory leave without pay for up to three days between April 15 and April 30 Also Read – Amid Lockdown, Here’s How IndiGo Starts Twitter Banter With Vistara, Soon Joined by Rival Airlines

Making the announcement, Vistara CEO Leslie Thng said that the move has been taken to further conserve the airline’s cash flow amid the lockdown extension. Also Read – Now Vistara Airlines Bans Kunal Kamra From Flying Till April 27, He Says ‘Neither Sorry, Nor Surprised’

Prior to this, the airline had on March 27 introduced compulsory leave without pay for up to three days between April 1 and April 14 for the same set of senior employees. This compulsory ‘no pay leave’ is going to affect around 1,200 employees in senior grades. Also Read – Vistara Evaluating Air India, no Decision Yet: Chairman

However, the remaining 2,800 employees of the airline such as members of cabin crew and ground handling services will be unaffected as they won’t go for three days compulsory leave.

“With the announcement by the government of India on extending the lockdown, we continue to suspend all our domestic and international operations till 3rd May 2020 and this further impacted significantly on our cash flow with no revenue being generated over an extended period of time,” Thng said to news agency PTI.

The development comes after domestic airlines decided not to refund customers in cash for their cancelled flights and instead have offered them rescheduling of tickets for a later date without any additional fee.

Since the day of lockdown, all domestic and international commercial passenger flights have been suspended.

However, some of the airlines were taking bookings except national carrier Air India for domestic flights for the period beyond April 14.

As the lockdown extended till May 3, passengers who have purchased tickets for the April 15 to May 3 would once again only be offered credit for future travel, rather than a refund, the airlines said.