India's only profitable airline, Indigo is feeling the hit of the second wave as it imposes leave without pay for pilots and other employees to cut on costs.
In a letter to it's employees Indigo wrote "The second wave has been difficult for all of us and has also resulted in reduction of passenger loads. All pilots would undertake 3 days of LWP for the next 3 months effective 1st June 2021." It is not just pilots the airline has also stated that all employees will face 1.5 to 4 days of leave without pay due to reduced capacity.
The average passenger load factor has been falling for 9 straight weeks due to restrictions and rising case loads across the nations. As per data available domestic carriers have been on average ferrying less than 50,000 passengers daily vs average of 2.8 lakh passengers flown daily in February before the second wave hit. Adding to that jet fuel prices are also up 6.7% for the month piling up costs for airlines.