Air India has reduced monthly allowances of its employees who have a monthly gross salary of more than Rs 25,000 by up to 50 per cent, according to an internal order of the company.

The order, issued on Thursday, said basic salary and allowances linked to it, such as industrial dearness allowance and house rent allowance, will remain unchanged. However, for “general category officers”, all other allowances would be reduced by 50 per cent, it said.

“General category staff” and “operators” would get all other allowances decreased by 30 per cent, the order said.

Cabin crew members would see all other allowances like check allowance, flying allowance and quick return allowance reduced by 20 per cent, it said.

The aviation sector has been badly hit by the pandemic restrictions.

The Air India order said 11 types of allowances for pilots would stand reduced by 40 per cent. Flying allowance would be paid on actual hours flown by an individual pilot in a month.

“However, as a special case, all pilots available for flying will be paid fixed 20 hours of flying allowance or actuals, whichever is higher in a month, during Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 of 2020-21 on revised flying allowance rate,” it added.

“For employees (both permanent and fixed-term contract) with gross salary up to Rs 25,000 there will be no reduction in salary,” it said.

All fixed term contractual executives and staff other than pilots and cabin crew members will see their other allowances reduced by 50 per cent and 30 per cent respectively, it said. The order said this reduction of other allowances will be effective from April 1 this year and will remain in force till the board of directors reviews it.

The Air India spokesperson did not respond to a request for a comment.