GoAir shuts international operations through April 15, sending some employees on leave without pay

The impact of the Covid19 has started to show on the smaller airlines in India, just like the rest of the world. While all the airlines with international operations, such as GoAir, IndiGo, Air India, Vistara, SpiceJet, Air India Express have had to cut back on their international operations, they are all trying to navigate through the labyrinth that is closing airspaces at the moment, just like all other airlines in the world.

GoAir

GoAir

Today, however, GoAir has decided to shut down their international operations. Besides that, GoAir has also asked employees to go on leave without pay. They made a statement to the effect,

 GoAir is forced to take certain measures — we are temporarily suspending all our international operations, starting 17th March 2020 until 15th April 2020. GoAir has also initiated a short term and temporary rotational leave without pay prograrn that will not only help the company counter the short terrn reduction in capacity, but will also ensure that a cross section of our employees stay away from the workplace to ensure business continuity. Knowing that this will put a financial burden on the affected employees and having studied what companies have done in other countries to help guide our plans, this decision was not taken lightly.

GoAir’s website states there are nine international destinations for the airline. The airline had launched its international operations just a while ago in 2018. Since then, they have flown to the following international destinations:

  • Phuket
  • Male
  • Dubai
  • Abu Dhabi
  • Muscat
  • Dammam
  • Kuwait
  • Colombo
  • Bangkok

This is an unfortunate consequence but an unavoidable one. GoAir is perhaps the first one to take this hard and prudent decision, but not the last one.


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About Ajay

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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