Vistara management assures better rostering, tries to allay pilots’ concerns on new contracts, merger with Air India

As per flight tracking data, on Monday, nearly 80 Vistara flights were cancelled and over 190 delayed of the airline’s schedule of over 300 daily flights. Tuesday again saw over 50 flight cancellations and numerous delays across the Vistara network. On Wednesday, the number of cancellations was around half of Tuesday’s and even delays were substantially lower. In view of the disruption, Vistara on Monday announced that it was temporarily cutting a few flights and also deploying larger aircraft on some routes.

What are the pilots’ concerns?

There appears to be discontent among a section of Vistara pilots, mainly first officers, over the new compensation structure, among other factors. According to industry sources, numerous Vistara pilots have been calling in sick, ostensibly to register their protest against the new pay structure that is in line with that of the Tata group’s flagship airline Air India. As per the new pay structure for Vistara pilots announced in February, they will be eligible for guaranteed pay for 40 hours, down from the 70 hours in their earlier contracts with the airline. This, many pilots fear, could lead to a notable cut in their take-home salaries.

Leading up to the merger, which is expected to be concluded sometime next year, there are indications that a number of Vistara pilots are also concerned about career progression opportunities as well as seniority levels in the merged airline. A section of pilots is also understood to be miffed with Vistara over stretching them to the limit, and with rostering practices that many among them feel are haphazard and last-minute, thereby impacting their work-life balance.

Corrective measures underway: Officials

“In the meeting, the CEO identified high resource utilisation levels as a major cause of the disruptions. With a number of pilots taking sick leave in the last two-three days of March, there was a cascading impact on operations over the next few days as the rosters were extremely tight without much room for flexibility or back-ups,” said an official who attended Wednesday’s meeting.

The official added that Kannan promised the pilots that corrective measures with regard to rostering would be put in place, and a marked difference would be visible from May. A “careful scaling back of the network” will also be done to slightly bring down the high crew utilisation levels at Vistara.

With regard to the new contracts, sources said that there were no signs of protests or any resistance from the pilots in Wednesday’s meeting. Kannan is understood to have thanked Vistara pilots for accepting the new contracts, saying that it was something that had to be done in view of the airline’s impending merger with Air India. The pilots were also told that there will be ample opportunities of career progression and income growth once the merger with Air India is complete.

“We understand that with new contracts coming in, a few pilots may have a few concerns and even grouses. All that can be easily resolved in the normal course of the airline’s functioning through human resources (HR) channels, which are available to everyone in the company,” said the official who was present at the meeting on Wednesday.

A number of Vistara pilots had called in sick in late February-early March as well, again allegedly to protest against the new pay structure. Later in March, the Vistara management is learnt to have given an ultimatum to unhappy pilots to accept the new pay structure, or give up the one-time payout that came with it and also the opportunity to work with Air India post its merger with Vistara. Sources indicated that this move further aggravated the disgruntled pilots.

The Air India-Vistara merger is part of the ongoing consolidation of airlines under the Tata umbrella. The Tata group is already 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.