New Delhi — Air India is drawing up a proposal to offer voluntary buyouts to just over a third of its 40,000 employees, according to a senior company official. It would be one of the largest such offers in India’s state sector, as the airline slashes costs ahead of a 2018 sale. The official, who could not be named as the plans are not public, said the state-owned airline had also put fleet expansion on hold, scrapping a plan to lease eight Boeing 787 wide-body aircraft. The board approved the proposal in April but nothing more had been done. India’s flag carrier is on the block after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet in June approved plans to privatise the loss-making airline by selling part or all of the company and ending decades of state support. Founded in the 1930s, Air India has a complex fleet, too many staff relative to rivals and $8.5bn in debt. Since 2012, New Delhi has injected $3.6bn to keep it afloat. An official in Modi’s office said the prime minister, under pres...
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