News: Air India ceases promotions & recruitment, prepares for stake sale

Employee Relations

Air India ceases promotions & recruitment, prepares for stake sale

The government shall soon begin the disinvesment process for Air India, which has a debt burden of more than Rs 50,000 crore.
Air India ceases promotions & recruitment, prepares for stake sale

As per the report, almost a week back the government has asked debt laden airline Air India to put a freeze on large-scale promotion and appointments. The government is looking to complete the Air India stake sale in the next four to five months and amidst such situation the airline has also chose to hold back on some key people decisions. 

Currently, Air India has 10,000 permanent employees who shall be get affected by this decision. Besides that in quarter two when hiring is generally at peak, the job seekers will also now face disappointment as the airline has decided to freeze hiring. 

In 2018, efforts to sell 76 percent stake in the Air India failed to take off in 2018. Recently on 3rd July, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told the Rajya Sabha that the government is committed to the disinvestment of Air India and the plan is to make it more operationally viable before stake sale. 

But the timeline is still ambiguous and now it has impacted the employees at Air India as well. As this announcement of ceasing promotions have just come in, it is not sure how the staff of the national carrier will react. The aviation sector in India and its workforce has already suffered the shock caused with the downfall of Jet Airways. The jitters are now starting to be created at Air India as well. 

However, as safeguarding the interest of Air India and its employees is a national agenda, the situation is likely to be taken under control soon. The concern to save the national carrier was even shared by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech. She shared that in view of current macro-economic parameters, the government would not only reinitiate the process of strategic disinvestment of Air India, but would offer more central public sector enterprises for strategic participation by the private sector. 

 

 

Image credit: Weekly Voice

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Topics: Employee Relations, #MergersAndAcquisitions

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