Final NCLT Nod Soon, Working On Integration Issues: Vistara CEO Tells Employees Ahead Of Air India Merger

Vistara is expecting final approval from National Company Law Tribunal regarding its much-eyed merger with Air India shortly, Vinod Kannan, chief executive officer at Vistara told employees on Saturday.

“We have received all relevant competition approvals from various jurisdictions now”, said Kannan. “The approval from NCLT is also in advanced stages and we expect to get the relevant approval on this front shortly too.”

NDTV Profit has seen a copy of the letter.

The CEO said that the airlines will start ensuring movement of larger number of people especially in back office and corporate roles, and will implement systems transition, data migration and communications to customers and partners on timelines and modality of integration, as soon as the final approval is received.

“The leadership teams and relevant cross functional teams have now started meeting more frequently to ensure that the relevant decisions for the merger are made in time and then executed seamlessly once we have the relevant approvals”, said Kannan.

Further, Vistara has also appointed an independent consultant to work with the relevant HR teams on mapping the staff, and to come with an organogram of the merged entity by the end of April. The airlines will also set up townhall to demonstrate the processes and key principles that were used to determine the final organization fitment.

This will happen through May and June, Kannan said.

On recent concerns around the new contract for pilots, the airlines will set up additional townhalls for pilot early next week regarding an integrated career progression list across the airlines. Vistara is working on the feedback and concerns related to the new contract for pilots and the cabin crew will be updated about any changes made ahead of the merger, Kannan said.

The new payment contract requires pilots to show up to work for at least 15 days in a month to be eligible for a guaranteed pay for 40 hours of fly time. As per industry sources, this is significantly lower than what the guaranteed pay of 70 hours of fly time pilots are currently getting.