Worst behind us: Vistara CEO
Vistara’s troubled phase of the past two to three weeks is now behind it, the company’s honcho reassured employees on Thursday. “I assure you that the worst is behind us, and we have already stabilised our operations, with our on-time performance increasing to 89% (second highest among all Indian airlines),” the company’s chief executive officer Vinod Kannan said in an internal message to employees, of which Mint has seen a copy.
The full-service airline had to cancel 30-50 flights per day over the past two weeks. The company pins it on rostering and other issues, but mass pilot absence related to the airline’s merger with Air India also played its part. Both airlines are owned by the Tata group; Vistara is a joint venture with Singapore Airlines.
“There were multitude of reasons behind this (the disruptions), including ATC (air traffic control) delays, bird hits, and maintenance activities early last month—all of which had a cascading effect on a highly optimised network,” Kannan added.
The airline has blamed poor rostering for the recent network disruption, followed by large number of unplanned sick leaves by pilots, with not not enough backups and with the existing lot already stretched to their limits. In 2022, Vistara deployed a fully automated rostering solution for improved management of its cabin crew and pilots.
Some Vistara pilots were unhappy over implementation of a uniform pay structure, which would reduce their salaries and bring them on par with Air India.
A new pay structure came into effect since last month in the run-up to the merger. Vistara pilots now get a fixed salary for 40 hours instead of 70 earlier. Plus, they receive payment in lieu of extra flying hours, and rewards will also be given based on the years of service with the airline.
“Several pilots continue to remain unsure about their future at the organisation amidst the merger between Air India and Vistara,” a pilot told Mint on the condition of anonymity.
Ameya Joshi, founder of aviation research platform Network Thoughts said VistaraAir India merger is more challenging than AirAsia India’s ongoing merger with Air India Express. Vistara is twice as big AirAsia India and its positioning is more premium than Air India. Still, Joshi feels things should work out eventually.