According to news reports, the CEO of Vistara Airlines, an airline based in India, informed staff members during a meeting on Wednesday that the company will review crew rosters and may reduce flights in order to solve the ongoing disruption caused by a sudden pilot shortage.
According to one of the reports, Vistara, which is owned by the Tata group and Singapore Airlines, has cancelled around 125 flights since April 1 as a result of several of its pilots being placed on sick leave at the end of March.
Two Vistara pilots claim that amid increasing exhaustion from a demanding schedule, some of them who took leave were protesting against a pay increase that was made lower in advance of the company’s merger with Tata-owned Air India later this year.
However, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan stated that the large number of sick leave days was not the only factor contributing to the shortfall; many pilots had reached their flying duty time limit.
According to Kannan, the airline would try to relieve the pilots of some of their workload, and rostering will start to show “visible results” in May. According to one of the sources, Vistara will also consider shrinking its network, although Kannan stated that would require some work.
An email requesting comment outside of business hours was not immediately answered by Vistara, which runs more than 300 flights daily.
The airline attributed the cancellations to a number of factors, including crew availability, in a statement earlier this week. To minimize interruptions, it has used its Boeing widebody aircraft on select domestic flights.
India’s civil aviation ministry was compelled to step in and keep an eye on the issue as a result of the cancellations and delays, and the aviation regulator has been asking for daily updates on flight disruptions.
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