IndiGo hikes salaries of pilots by 8% from April 1

India's largest airline IndiGo has hiked the salaries of its pilots by 8 percent with effect from today.

The airline had implemented salary cuts across several categories of employees, including pilots, due to decline in revenues owing to COVID-induced low demand over the last two years.

The airline has further stated that it plans to increase the salaries of pilots by 6.5 percent from November in case there are no further disruptions to the flight operations.

"Now, as we have established continuous steady operations, on behalf of our Managing Director, the board of directors and the senior Leadership team, I am pleased to announce an upwards revision of 8 percent in salaries of all our Pilots with effect from 1st April, 2022. The HR team would share your revised salary structure in the coming weeks. Further, as we look forward to a positive revenue environment and hopefully we don't witness any further disruptions to operations, we also plan to implement an additional 6.5 percent revision w.e.f 1st November, 2022," Captain Ashim Mittra - Senior Vice President, Flight Ops, IndiGo, told the pilots in a mail.

While the demand for air travel was severely impacted in India during the first two waves of coronavirus, the sentiment recovered rapidly after the third wave, witnessed predominantly in the month of January-February of this year.

India has also resumed scheduled international passenger flights from March 27 and several airlines, including IndiGo, are betting big on international flights on the back of strong revenue potential.

IndiGo plans to resume international flights on around 150 international routes through the month of April and aims to restore pre-COVID international flights deployment.

The domestic traffic is also witnessing strong passenger sentiment at around 80-85 percent of pre-COVID level with recovery led by corporate traffic.