Even as Vistara’s pilots are protesting revised contracts following its merger with Air India, the airline has now told striking pilots that salaries for “extra working hours” will be credited post-integration with Air India’s roster and asked them to call off the strike, according to a Moneycontrol report citing sources present at a meeting with the airline’s management.
On April 3, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan held a virtual meeting with the pilots amid a standoff over compensation issues. According to the Moneycontrol report, HR Head Deepa Chadha, Vinod Bhat, Vikram Mohan Dayal, and Rajiv Malhotra were also part of the town hall.
In recent weeks, discontentment has been simmering among pilots at Vistara, which is in the process of getting merged with Air India, following the new contracts wherein there are concerns that fixed pay component is getting reduced and there is more flying-linked incentive in the salary structure.
The new contracts that will bring parity between pilots of Vistara and Air India have been introduced as part of the ongoing merger process. Vistara is a joint venture between the Tata Group and Singapore Airlines.
Many first officers of Vistara’s A320 fleet have been reporting sick in the past few weeks and on Monday alone, around 50 flights were cancelled and many were delayed as there were not enough pilots to operate flights. The sources said now some commanders of the A320 fleet are reporting sick.
Vistara has a fleet of 70 planes comprising 63 aircraft from A320 family and seven wide-body Boeing 787s. In a statement on Monday, Vistara said it had a significant number of flight cancellations and delays in the past few days due to various reasons, including crew unavailability.
“We have decided to temporarily reduce the number of flights we operate, to ensure adequate connectivity across our network,” the airline had said, and also apologised for the disruptions. Further, the airline has deployed larger aircraft like B787-9 Dreamliner and A321 neo on select domestic routes to combine flights or accommodate more customers, wherever possible.
In the ongoing summer schedule, Vistara is to operate 25.22 per cent more weekly flights at 2,324.
On Tuesday, April 2, aviation watchdog DGCA asked Vistara to submit a daily report on flight cancellations and delays as the Tata group airline cancelled more than 50 flights for the second straight day on Tuesday amid non-availability of pilots. The civil aviation ministry is also monitoring the situation of flight cancellations at Vistara, which saw resignations of at least 15 senior first officers in the recent past.
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