The airline business has suffered a loss in the last few years, even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world and caused further damage. Amid this, most airlines across the world were suffering from losses. However, this did not deter many airlines to step forward and aid the fight against the pandemic through CSR. Let us look at two airlines in India that carried out their CSR initiatives in the face of the pandemic and aid the country’s fight against it.
Air Vistara
As COVID-19 hit India in 2020, the operations of Vistara Airlines were suspended for two months with no revenue coming in for the airline. However recognizing its responsibility toward the community, the airline launched Vistara Wellness Initiative, in April 2020, by collaborating with Indian Hotels Company Ltd. (IHCL), and contributed 50,000+ long shelf-life food items from the flight kitchens to the medical frontline workers. Vistara Wellness Initiative further expanded its scope to provide food and hygiene essentials to all those in need, especially those from vulnerable communities who were struggling to make ends meet. Through its implementation partner, Salaam Baalak Trust, the airline supplied hundreds of dry ration kits and sanitizers to families of children that it had been supporting for many years.
Soon, the company went beyond Delhi and activated its entire network across India. It assembled a wellness kit that included hygiene and nutrition items. In collaboration with The Robin Hood Army, these kits were, then, distributed in both rural and urban areas, among marginalized communities. Vistara also brought like-minded partners on board like Pee Safe, which sponsored hygiene items in the second phase of the Vistara Wellness Initiative, which took place in March 2021. This phase also saw diverse stakeholders like the government and airport authority officials joining hands with our airport teams in the distribution drives. To date, the airline has distributed 1,40,000+ wellness items, positively impacting 18,000+ individuals.
During this time, Vistara Airlines also launched an Eco-Friendly masks initiative with the aim of enabling financial independence among women entrepreneurs. Under this initiative, the airline collaborated with Ashima Foundation (supported by Tata Power) and Humana People to People India, for handcrafted, reusable, cotton masks, which the company distributed among its employees. This not only took the women a step closer to their financial stability but also encouraged the employees to make a sustainable choice over surgical masks.
Indigo Airline
Indigo Airlines is a low-cost airline in India, aimed at making air travel affordable for all. The airline contributes to the improvement of the standard of living of society through its low-cost solutions and through its CSR initiatives. IndiGoReach is the CSR intervention of IndiGo through which the company implements programs and processes to contribute toward the goal of sustainable development for its communities.
Education is one of the core pillars of IndiGoReach. IndiGoReach initiatives aim to educate underprivileged children in multiple states of the country. Today, the company’s education program reaches out to 44,400+ children enrolled in identified schools. To ensure that students do not miss their studies during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, IndiGo introduced special initiatives to promote learning across multiple states of India. One of the education interventions of IndiGoReach is to cover 5,000 students from Class 6 to 10, in 25 rural Government schools across the Badgaon and Kurabad blocks of the Udaipur district. The program aims at enabling these school children with the required academic skills and conceptual clarity while improving the relationship between the students, teachers, and parents. The IndiGo School Adoption Programme is being implemented to improve the quality of the teaching and learning process, enhance digital literacy through the ‘Get Smart’ bus initiative and improve and maintain the existing infrastructure facilities created across seventy-five (75) Government schools.
