Vistara working on flight plans beyond May 24, worst is over: CEO

'Challenging start to new financial year', says Vinod Kannan after airline had to cancel 150 flights between March 31 and April 4

Vistara has cut 10 per cent of its flights until May 24 to stabilise operations and is working on plans for later, said Chief Executive Officer Vinod Kannan on Thursday.

Vistara cancelled more than 150 flights from March 31 to April 4, allegedly due to some pilots taking sudden sick leave to show their dissatisfaction with the roster and a new salary structure. The airline operates about 320 flights daily.

In a message to employees, Kannan said: “It has been a challenging start to the new financial year. As you are no doubt aware, we faced significant operational disruption from March 31 to April 2. The anxiety and frustration felt by our customers was matched in even measure to the pain that all of us felt in seeing our much-loved brand drawing negative commentary from various quarters.”

He said the "worst" is behind the airline and it has stabilised operations, with its on-time performance increasing to 89 per cent on April 9.

“As I mentioned in the virtual dialogue last week, there were a multitude of reasons behind this, including Air Traffic Control delays, bird hits, and maintenance activities early last month - all of which had a cascading effect on a highly optimised network. We were stretched in our pilot rosters and there was not enough resilience to withstand injects (pilots going on leave) that we would otherwise have weathered. 

We could and should have planned better, and this has been a learning experience for us which we will review thoroughly," he said. Kannan expressed his gratitude to his pilots for cooperating to support operations. He expressed his gratitude to all customer-facing teams who faced a “daunting and escalating” situation and managed it with professionalism.

“We have scaled back our operations by around 25-30 flights per day, i.e. roughly 10 per cent of the capacity we were operating. These cancellations are mostly on our domestic network and much ahead of time to minimise inconvenience to customers. Additionally, we are working on the plans for May 24 and beyond."

He said the airline has provided the necessary compensation as per the regulatory mandate. It has also offered additional service recovery vouchers for passengers whose flights were significantly delayed.

"While the events of the last week may seem like a setback, the hallmark of our organisation has always been that we have bounced back from tough situations - and emerged stronger," he said. As part of a new structure, Vistara pilots will receive a fixed salary for 40 hours of flying time instead of the current 70 hours. They will be compensated for extra flying hours and will earn an additional amount as a reward based on their years of service with the airline.

This new salary structure was offered as Vistara, which is a 51:49 joint venture of the Tata Group and Singapore Airlines, is in the process of merging with Air India, which is wholly owned by the Tata Group.

Earlier this month, two Air India pilot unions described their situation as akin to "bonded labourers" and voiced their support for Vistara pilots who have raised their grievances.