Vistara asserts 98% pilots sign up to new contracts as several said to reject terms

Vistara’s CEO Vinod Kannan on Saturday asserted that “over 98% of pilots” had signed new contracts entailing a new pay structure, which has been cited by industry sources as a key issue that led to a spate of recent flight cancellations and delays at the full service airline that is set to merge with Air India. The industry sources, however, contended that the number of Vistara pilots who had not accepted the new pay structure announced in February were far more in number than the airline was publicly admitting.

‘Some have concerns’ “Over 98% of pilots have signed the new contract,” Mr. Kannan said in an emailed statement to The Hindu. “Having said that, we are aware that some pilots have some concerns and queries regarding the contract. We are engaging with them to clarify and resolve the same,” he stated, adding that this had, however, ‘not caused any visible spike in attrition’ among pilots.

The CEO, who had held a town hall with pilots on April 4 to address their concerns after the airline was forced to cancel 150 flights and suffer delays to more than 200 other flights in the preceding three to four days, is reported to have told participants at that event that 270 pilots had not signed the contract, according to multiple people who had participated at the online meeting and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

This would imply that almost a fourth of Vistara’s total cockpit crew were opposed to the terms of the new contract, which cuts the guaranteed minimum flying allowance from 70 hours to 40 hours resulting in a monthly pay cut of ₹80,000 to ₹1.4 lakh for First Officers (FOs or junior pilots). The airline has over 1,100 pilots on its rolls.

Acknowledging the gravity of the recent disruptions to the airline’s flight schedules and its impact on customers, Mr. Kannan said in the statement, “We are addressing this on a war footing... we are continuing to hire more pilots and are also carefully scaling back our operations slightly to provide the much needed resilience and a buffer in the rosters.” He added Vistara hoped to stabilise operations “by this weekend”.