Vistara Cancels 26 Flights, Holds Meet With Unhappy Pilots With Hopes To Return To Normalcy Soon | Updates

Vistara, which has witnessed over 100 flight cancellations over the past couple of days, called off another 26 scheduled air journeys on Wednesday owing to the non-availability of crew. According to sources, Vistara’s top officials held a meeting with the unhappy pilots where discussions were held on new contracts and rostering issues.

The Tata Group airline’s top officials including CEO Vinod Kannan, held a virtual meeting with pilots to discuss their problems and officials of human resources among other departments attended the meeting, aviation sources said. However, there was no official statement from Vistara on the meeting with the pilots.

Updates On The Vistara Flight Question

-Sources have said that the flight operations are returning to normalcy and the number of flight cancellations has come down.

-On issues related to rostering and stretched working hours, the airline officials have assured the pilots that they will be sorted out by May.

-With a section of pilots reporting sick to protest against the revised pay structure, Vistara cancelled over 100 flights in the last two days and aviation regulator DGCA has asked the carrier to submit a daily report on the cancellations and delays.

-Vistara, which is in the process of getting merged with Air India, has around 1,000 pilots, including about 200 who are at various stages of training.

-In the summer schedule that started on March 31, the airline is to operate a little over 300 flights daily.

-The DGCA said that the airline company is responsible for providing timely refunds to passengers and keeping them informed about flight status and timing. Additionally, DGCA officials are monitoring the situation to ensure compliance with above mentioned CAR and minimise passenger inconvenience.

-The Airline in a statement on Tuesday had said “We have had a significant number of flight cancellations and delays in the past few days due to various reasons including crew unavailability. We acknowledge and are deeply concerned about the inconvenience this has caused to our customers. We have decided to temporarily reduce the number of flights we operate, to ensure adequate connectivity across our network. Furthermore, we are offering alternate flight options or refunds to affected customer, as applicable.”

(With agency inputs)