KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Bhd has failed in its bid to overturn an Industrial Court ruling ordering it to pay RM268,620 in compensation and back wages to a former pilot who resigned after being placed on prolonged unpaid leave during the Covid-19 pandemic.
High Court judge Datuk Azizan Md Arshad dismissed the airline's appeal, ruling that its decision to place Eric Koh on indefinite unpaid leave without a clear date for his return to work amounted to a fundamental breach of his employment contract.
Azizan said an employee's agreement to temporary unpaid leave did not give an employer the right to withhold wages indefinitely.
"Consent to a temporary measure implemented in exceptional circumstances cannot, without more, be converted into consent to an indefinite deprivation of remuneration and suspension of the employee's contractual obligation to work," he said in his grounds of judgment dated Sept 28.
