Vistara Crisis: Amid the ongoing crisis being faced by Vistara Airlines due to the shortage of pilots, the CEO of the company Vinod Kannan on Thursday told the airline staff that the “worst is behind us” and operations have already stabilised. Due to pilot shortage, the Tata Group airline had to temporarily reduce capacity by 10 per cent, or 25–30 flights per day. Kannan described the incident as a “learning experience” even though he acknowledged that better planning should have been done.
“The anxiety and frustration felt by our customers were matched in even measure to the pain that all of us felt in seeing our much-loved brand drawing negative commentary from various quarters… I assure you that the worst is behind us, and we have already stabilised our operations, with our on-time performance (OTP) increasing to 89 per cent on 9 April 2024 (second highest among all Indian airlines),” he said in a message to the staff.
Vistara Crisis: Reason Behind Flight Disruptions
Following the crisis, a virtual meeting was held between the airline’s top management and pilots. The crisis hit the Airlines after some pilots reported sick to protest against the new contract that will result in pay revision. According to Kannan, there were a multitude of reasons for the disruptions, including ATC delays, bird hits, and maintenance activities early last month.
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“We were stretched in our pilot rosters and there was not enough resilience to withstand injects that we would otherwise have weathered. We could and should have planned better, and this has been a learning experience for us which we will review thoroughly,” the Vistara chief said.
Vistara Crisis: Airlines Pay Compensation To Customers
Vistara has also reached out to its customers who were affected due to the disruptions and offered them compensation.
“We have provided the necessary compensation as per the regulatory mandate, and have also offered additional service recovery vouchers for passengers whose flights were significantly delayed,” the Vistara chief said.