 "Vistara")
Vistara announced on Sunday that it will be cancelling 10 per cent of its daily flights in April to provide a ‘much-needed buffer’ in pilot rosters. The airline typically operates about 350 flights daily.
Since April 1, Vistara has been compelled to cancel over 150 flights, reportedly due to a specific faction of pilots unexpectedly calling in sick at the end of March. Their action is believed to signify discontent with both the flight schedule and the revised salary structure.
The airline’s CEO Vinod Kannan had last week accepted that high pilot utilisation, combined with a portion of pilots taking sick leave at the end of March, led to flight cancellations.
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On Sunday the airline’s spokesperson said, “We are carefully scaling back our operations by around 25-30 flights per day, that is roughly 10 per cent of the capacity we were operating. This will take us back to the same level of flight operations as at the end of February 2024, and provide the much-needed resilience and buffer in the rosters.”
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These cancellations have mostly been done in the airline’s domestic network and ‘much ahead of time’ to minimise inconvenience to the customers.
“All the affected passengers have already been accommodated on other flights, as applicable. In line with what we had said earlier, with this, all the changes for the month of April 2024 have been done and the situation has already gotten better with our on-time performance improving for the last few days. Looking ahead, we are hopeful of stable operations for the rest of the month and beyond,” the airline’s spokesperson noted.
Last Friday, the airline had apologised to passengers for the flight cancellations and delays that have taken place since April 1 amid pilot unrest.
As part of the new salary structure, Vistara pilots will receive a fixed salary for 40 hours of flying time instead of the current 70 hours. Additionally, 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 being merged into Air India, which is wholly-owned by the Tata Group.
Last Thursday, two Air India pilot unions described their situation as akin to ‘bonded labourers’ and voiced their backing for Vistara pilots who have raised their grievances.
The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) gave its approval to the merger of Vistara and Air India in March 2024. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) approved the merger between the airlines in September 2023.
Vistara is anticipating an operational merger with Air India by mid-2025, in addition to its expectations of receiving legal approvals for it by the middle of the current calendar year, CEO Kannan had said at a press briefing in January.
