Vistara cancels 26 flights, holds meeting with pilots to address issues

Mumbai, Amid flight cancellations due to non-availability of crew, Vistara's top officials on Wednesday held a meeting with pilots where discussions were held on new contracts and rostering issues, according to sources. The Tata Group airline cancelled around 26 flights on Wednesday, the sources in the know said.

With a section of pilots reporting sick to protest against the revised pay structure, Vistara cancelled over 100 flights in the last two days and aviation regulator DGCA has asked the carrier to submit a daily report on the cancellations and delays.

The sources said top officials of Vistara, including CEO Vinod Kannan, held a virtual meeting with pilots to discuss their problems.

Officials of human resources among other departments attended the meeting.

There was no official statement from Vistara on the meeting with the pilots.

Flight operations are returning to normalcy and the number of flights cancellations has come down, the sources said.

On issues related to rostering and stretched working hours, the airline officials have assured the pilots that they will be sorted out by May, the sources said.

They also claimed that the current situation was mainly due to higher utilisation of the available pool of pilots.

Vistara, which is in the process of getting merged with Air India, has around 1,000 pilots, including about 200 who are at various stages of training.

In the summer schedule that started from March 31, the airline is to operate a little over 300 flights daily.