Air India acts after finding misuse of staff travel policy

Air India has detected large-scale discrepancies in the utilisation of its leisure travel policy, involving more than 4,000 employees and has initiated corrective actions, including imposing penalties on the erring staff, according to sources.

Loss-making Air India was acquired by the Tata Group in January 2022, and the airline, which has faced multiple headwinds in recent times, is also in the midst of implementing an ambitious transformation plan. The airline has more than 24,000 employees.

The sources in the know told PTI that the large-scale discrepancies in the use of Air India’s Employee Leisure Travel (ELT) policy were detected after a detailed internal investigation.

The ELT policy allows a specified number of free air tickets for individual employees and their nominees, including spouse and parents. These are subject to certain conditions.

Many employees were found to have misused the policy by showing those not related to them as relatives to avail the benefits. Some were reported to have even availed the free tickets and sold them to people at a higher price, the sources said. A detailed set of queries sent to Air India on Thursday seeking comments on the issue and the actions taken remained unanswered. One of the sources said more than 4,000 staff were found to have misused the ELT policy. Violations dating back to the last financial year, claims were also detected, sources said.

Specific details about the number of employees, the amount involved due to the misuse of the policy and the time period for which the violations have been detected could not be ascertained.

Air India has started taking corrective actions, and the employees concerned have been asked to refund the amount that was availed in a fraudulent manner. Heavy penalties were also imposed on many of the staff who indulged in such practices, the sources said.

There seems to have been failures at various levels, and the whole issue raises the “question of morality and conduct”, one of the sources said.

Another source claimed that most of the employees, who were found to have misused the policy, had joined the airline post-privatisation.

As a fallout of the fraudulent practices, Air India has tightened the requirements for availing the benefits under the ELT policy, the sources said.

For the policy benefits, an employee has to provide nominee details, along with proof of the relationship to the company.

A total of 14 passages or return air tickets are provided for staff in a financial year. This can also include open-jaw tickets, which refer to booking a ticket for a flight that is from a different point to the origin destination.