Air India audit uncovers large-scale misuse of staff vacation travel scheme; 4,000 employees under scanner: Report

Air India has identified extensive inconsistencies in the application of its staff vacation travel program, affecting over 4,000 personnel, and has commenced remedial measures, including the application of sanctions on the responsible employees, according to PTI.

The deficit-running Air India was purchased by the Tata Group in January 2022, and the carrier, which has encountered various obstacles lately, is also currently executing a massive organizational overhaul. The company employs upwards of 24,000 workers.

The broad-scale irregularities regarding the usage of Air India's Employee Leisure Travel (ELT) guidelines were uncovered following a comprehensive internal audit, PTI reported.

The ELT framework permits a set quantity of complimentary flight vouchers for individual staff and their designated beneficiaries, such as spouses and parents. These perks are contingent upon specific requirements.

Numerous workers were discovered to have exploited the system by designating unrelated individuals as kin to access the perks. Certain instances indicated that staff had even claimed these free vouchers and traded them to external parties for profit, PTI reported.

A series of formal inquiries dispatched to Air India on Thursday requesting statements on the matter and subsequent measures taken went unaddressed, as per the news agency.

More than 4,000 workers were found to have breached the ELT guidelines, PTI reported. Infractions reaching back to the previous fiscal period, including claims, were also identified. Definite figures regarding the employee count, the financial impact of the policy exploitation, and the specific timeframe of the identified breaches could not be confirmed.

Air India has initiated recovery steps, and the involved personnel have been instructed to reimburse the funds obtained through deceptive means. Significant fines were also leveled against many of the workers who participated in such actions, as per the news agency. There appear to have been oversights at various operational tiers, and the entire situation highlights a "matter of ethics and behavior," PTI reported.

The majority of the staff members who were found to have abused the system had joined the carrier following its privatization.

In response to the deceptive activities, Air India has strengthened the criteria for accessing perks under the ELT framework.

To utilize these benefits, a worker must now submit beneficiary info along with documentary evidence of the familial link to the firm.

A cumulative 14 segments or round-trip flight vouchers are granted to staff during a fiscal year. This may also incorporate open-jaw vouchers, which involve reserving a seat for a journey that departs from a location different from the initial destination point.