The pilot crunch that led to massive flight cancellations by Vistara may continue, with protesting crew members unlikely to return. No breakthrough was reached in talks between Vistara management and the protesting pilots, NDTV reported.
Amid the merger with Air India, the pilots are protesting against the revised contracts. The NDTV report stated that under the new agreement between the two airlines, the junior co-pilots will see a salary cut from ₹2.35 lakh per month to ₹1.88 lakh per month since the mandated flying hours will go down from 70 to 40.
As per sources quoted by NDTV, pilots could choose to fly more and would earn more than their salaries.
The pilots are also upset that if they don’t sign the new agreement, they will not be promoted as captains or be given the responsibility for flying widebody aircraft on international routes.
These pilots would be considered uninterested in working with Air India and “will not be included in the transition”, NDTV quoted the airline.
After receiving the email, numerous pilots reported being sick, resulting in significant flight disruptions. On Monday, over 150 flights were cancelled, and approximately 160 experienced delays.
Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has requested a comprehensive report concerning the flight cancellations and delays. Additionally, he urged the airline to implement measures to mitigate inconvenience to passengers.
On Monday, Vistara issued a statement saying, “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. Having said that, our teams are working towards minimising the discomfort to the customers.”
It added, “We have decided to temporarily reduce the number of flights we operate, to ensure adequate connectivity across our network. We have also deployed larger aircraft like our B787-9 Dreamliner and A321neo on select domestic routes to combine flights or accommodate more number of customers, wherever possible. Once again, we understand that these disruptions have caused immense discomfort to our customers, and sincerely apologise to them for the same. We are working towards stabilizing the situation and will resume operating our regular capacity very soon.”
Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday ordered Vistara to file daily reports. Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a post on X, “Ministry of Civil Aviation is monitoring the situation of Vistara flight cancellations. However, flight operations are managed by Airlines themselves. Airlines have to comply with DGCA norms to ensure passenger facilitation in case of cancellation or delay of flights.”
