NEW DELHI: Vistara flight disruptions could significantly ease by the weekend, with the management of the 70-aircraft-strong airline promising a more humane utilisation of its about 1,000 pilots — who are currently on standby almost all times when not flying — due to “faulty” rostering. To ensure this, the airline which currently operates 320-330 daily flights is going to scale back its schedule from as early as next month.
This was conveyed in a town hall Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan had with pilots on Wednesday afternoon after more than a month of flight disruptions due to crew unavailability and other reasons.
This means sunset brand Vistara is now unlikely to return to its peak flight operations before merging with Air India later this year.
Kannan also had a virtual town hall with cabin crew and other departments.
The issue of pay cuts, another serious cause of heartburn among pilots, as Vistara prepares for a merger with Air India is unlikely to be addressed as the pay structure for both airlines. Vistara has to become like Air India in all aspects as much as possible to facilitate the merger later this year.
“Pilots conveyed their genuine concerns to Kannan. They were not on strike but a faulty rostering had meant their utilisation bordered on the brink of legal permissible limit. When not flying, they are required to be on standby so often that there is really no personal time,” said multiple pilots.
Vistara is to be merged into AI in the next few months. Issues that can be resolved within the Vistara domain in its remaining time, like a more humane rostering, will be resolved, the management assured pilots. While pay parity with AI pilots for the sake of merger is something that pilots understand, they have sought assurance on other issues that concern them like seniority and career progression, including the shift from operating narrow-body to wide-body planes.
“Our training is very inefficient that requires us to remain on the ground for longer that is actually required. We were not on strike but the utilisation is to the hilt for operating pilots. When a few become unavailable for some reason, schedule integrity goes for a toss,” said pilots.
This was conveyed in a town hall Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan had with pilots on Wednesday afternoon after more than a month of flight disruptions due to crew unavailability and other reasons.
This means sunset brand Vistara is now unlikely to return to its peak flight operations before merging with Air India later this year.
Kannan also had a virtual town hall with cabin crew and other departments.
The issue of pay cuts, another serious cause of heartburn among pilots, as Vistara prepares for a merger with Air India is unlikely to be addressed as the pay structure for both airlines. Vistara has to become like Air India in all aspects as much as possible to facilitate the merger later this year.
“Pilots conveyed their genuine concerns to Kannan. They were not on strike but a faulty rostering had meant their utilisation bordered on the brink of legal permissible limit. When not flying, they are required to be on standby so often that there is really no personal time,” said multiple pilots.
Vistara is to be merged into AI in the next few months. Issues that can be resolved within the Vistara domain in its remaining time, like a more humane rostering, will be resolved, the management assured pilots. While pay parity with AI pilots for the sake of merger is something that pilots understand, they have sought assurance on other issues that concern them like seniority and career progression, including the shift from operating narrow-body to wide-body planes.
“Our training is very inefficient that requires us to remain on the ground for longer that is actually required. We were not on strike but the utilisation is to the hilt for operating pilots. When a few become unavailable for some reason, schedule integrity goes for a toss,” said pilots.