Vistara, an airline that prides itself for its service standards and quality, is facing major flight disruptions, with over 100 flights cancelled, and many more delayed, over the last two days.
What is behind the flight disruptions? We explain.
Network-wide disruption
After a steady build-up of delays and cancellation over the last few days, things came to a head on Monday (April 1) when, according to flight tracking data, nearly 80 Vistara flights — of the airline’s scheduled daily 300 — were cancelled, and over 190 delayed. Tuesday again saw dozens more flights cancelled, and numerous delays across the airline’s network.
Vistara has acknowledged the problem, and pointed to “crew unavailability” as one of the reasons for the disruptions. “We have had a significant number of flight cancellations and delays in the past few days due to various reasons including crew unavailability,” a Vistara spokesperson said on Monday.
The carrier has announced a temporary reduction in flights, and deployment of larger planes — like B787-9 Dreamliner and A321neo — on certain routes to accommodate more passengers on fewer flights. Vistara, however, did not specify how many flights it plans to cut, and for how many days will this truncated schedule be in effect.
As per the summer schedule for this year, the airline planned to operate 2,324 domestic flights a week, or 332 daily domestic departures.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), on Tuesday, asked the airline to submit a detailed report on the prevailing crisis, and mitigation measures being taken. Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) also directed Vistara to submit daily reports on flight cancellations and delays, and to ensure compliance with rules pertaining to facilities that need to be provided to passengers in cases of cancellations and delays.
Unhappy pilots
At its heart, the current problem of flight disruptions at Vistara appears to be an HR (human resources) issue. There is significant discontent among a large number of Vistara pilots, mainly first officers, over a new compensation structure, a part of the pay harmonisation exercise prior to Vistara’s planned merger with Tata group’s flagship Air India.
Announced in February, the new pay structure guarantees pay for only 40 flying hours (a month), down from 70 hours previously. This, many first officers fear, could lead to a drastic cut in their take-home salaries.
Thus, a number of Vistara pilots called in sick, first in early March, ostensibly to protest against this new pay structure. At the time, the airline did not cite crew shortage as the reason for flight cancellations and delays. But later in March, Vistara’s management is learnt to have given an ultimatum to the unhappy pilots — accept the new pay structure, or give up the one-time payout that comes with it, as well as the opportunity to work with Air India post its merger with Vistara.
Industry insiders say that this further aggravated the pilots, who one again started calling in sick from the end of last week.
But pay is not all that Vistara pilots are unhappy about. Many are concerned about career progression opportunities, and seniority levels post the airline’s planner merger with Air India, which is expected to be concluded sometime next year. A section of pilots is also understood to be miffed with Vistara over its haphazard, and without notice rostering practices that seriously impact their work-life balance.
Notably, Vistara does not have a significant buffer of pilots on standby, primarily because it has not been hiring in large numbers ahead of its Air India merger. This makes it difficult for the airline to handle situations like mass sick leaves — the aviation sector’s version of strikes.
A cautionary tale for Tata
Despite the mass disruption, indications from the airline show that neither the pilots, nor the management are willing to budge — yet. Aviation experts say that both the airline and pilots would want to resolve the problem quickly, which can be best achieved with both parties showing some flexibility.
The prevailing situation also underscores future problems that the Tata group might have to grapple with as it moves to consolidate its airline business.
Apart from merging Air India and Vistara, the salt-to-software conglomerate is in the process of merging its low-cost carriers Air India Express and AIX Connect (formerly Air Asia India). Once both the mergers are complete, the Air India group will have a full-service carrier, Air India, and a low-cost airline, Air India Express. Singapore Airlines, which has a 49 per cent stake in Vistara, will own 25.1 per cent of the merged Air India.
However, people integration is often among the most complex parts of mergers. Apart from bringing about pay parity, integrating employees coming from different organisational cultures can be extremely daunting. Mergers can, thus, potentially lead to friction among employees coming from different companies, over seniority, chain of command, apprehensions over career progression, etc.
Take for instance, the Air India-Indian Airlines merger when the carriers were still under government control. The consequent HR mess took years, court cases, and government-appointed committees to get sorter. Many insiders would even argue that the issues were never fully resolved, constantly fueling discontent among employees of both erstwhile carriers, with either side claiming to have received the raw end of the deal.
