Over 98% of the 1,000-odd Vistara pilots signs the new agreement

Vistara, a prominent Indian airline, has recently found itself embroiled in controversy regarding its pilot contracts. However, in a recent development, the airline announced that over 98% of its pilots have signed the new contract.

In the past month, the airline had come under the radar of controversy several times due to significant disruption in operation due to the non-availability of the crew and many flights being canceled. This discrepancy came into effect because pilots of Vistara sought sick leaves all at the same moment, due to a revised salary that the airline was trying to implement before its coalition with Air India Limited, a Tata Group enterprise. This arrangement enables customers to travel seamlessly on the entire network of both Air India and Vistara using a single ticket.

What made Vistara hit the headlines in the past week?

Earlier also Vistara and other airlines have canceled flight or delayed it due to uneven weather and other unforeseen weather conditions, but this time the case is entirely different. Monday, nearly 80 Vistara flights were cancelled and over 190 were delayed from the schedule of over 300 daily flights. On Tuesday as well, Vistara had canceled over 50 flights. According to the airlines’ X handle, flights seem to be canceled today as well.

This is because numerous Vistara pilots have been calling in sick to protest a new pay structure as mentioned above. Vistara is set to merge with Air India soon. According to PTI 15 senior pilots quit recently.

The pilots had protested in the first week of March as well, and back then the management gave them an ultimatum to either accept the new pay structure or give up the one-time payout that came with it in addition to the opportunity to work with Air India post its merger. The merger is expected to be completed in 2025 and is part of the Tata Group’s plans to consolidate all its airlines, reports Faye D’Souza-an Indian journalist.

This revised structure reduced pilots’ confirmed pay to 40 hours of fly time from the current 70 hours. It also demanded them to show up to work for at least 15 days to be eligible for 40 hours of fly time pay.

Vistara has also acknowledged the “crew unavailability” and said it would temporarily reduce the number of scheduled flights without providing any other specifics.

The stranded and frustrated passengers took to X to vent their grievances. They have reported cases of Flight Delay, Cancellation, Boarding Denied, Medical Emergency and Lost or Damaged Baggage.

Vistara again finds itself under stormy black clouds as DGCA slams the airline for inconveniences faced by passengers and sought daily information and details on the flight that are being cancelled or delayed.

CEO’s statement serves as a breakthrough

Vinod Kannan, the CEO of Vistara has recently commented on the ongoing unrest and said they were aware that some pilots raised concerns and queries regarding the contract, and they were engaging with them to clarify and resolve the same. The statement quoted, “We would like to again clarify that these disruptions were due to the cascading effect of a multitude of factors. While we do have an adequate crew for normal operations since we have been operating on a high utilization, we were challenged due to operational disruption,”.

In an official statement by the airline, it read, “The situation has already improved, with our on-time performance increasing to over 80% for the last two days. We hope to stabilise our operations for the rest of April 2024 by this weekend. We would like to assure our customers that we will live up to the Vistara experience that they have come to expect from us over the years. We thank our customers for their continued support and request for their patience as we work towards resolving this”.

As per the statement given by the Airline on X, it is addressing the current situation on a war footing and hiring more pilots. The airline is also carefully scaling back operations slightly to provide the much-needed resilience and a buffer in the rosters to satiate the expectations of the passenger.