Vistara CEO Says 98% Pilots Have Signed New Contract

Domestic air carrier Vistara has said that 98% of pilots have signed the new contract offered by the airline. In a statement, Vinod Kannan, the CEO of Vistara said they were aware that some pilots raised concerns and queries regarding the contract and they were engaging with them to clarify and resolve the same.

“We would like to again clarify that these disruptions were due to the cascading effect of a multitude of factors. While we do have adequate crew for normal operations, since we have been operating on a high utilisation, we were challenged due to operational disruption,” read the statement from the CEO.

The airline has also said that it is continuing to hire more pilots and carefully scaling back operations for resilience and buffer in the rosters.

To address the concerns of the passengers, who have had to suffer due to flight cancellations and delays, the airline has temporarily reduced the number of flights. Instead, it has deployed larger aircraft like the B787-9 DreamlinerTM and A321neo on select domestic routes. This would aid in accommodating more passengers.

The CEO’s statement comes in response to several flight delays and cancellations over the last few days due to crew unavailability. This was because pilots sought sick leaves all at once, due to a revised salary system the airline was trying to implement ahead of its merger with Air India.

This structure slashed pilots’ confirmed pay to 40 hours of flytime from the current 70 hours. It also required them to show up to work for at least 15 days in order to be eligible for 40 hours of flytime pay.