Vistara airline has more than 1,100 pilots on its rolls.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
More than one in four pilots in Vistara have not accepted the new pay structure announced in mid-February ahead of the merger with Air India. The integration of the two airlines has also escalated concerns over inadequate manpower and raised questions over safety being compromised to expedite training.
The airline’s CEO Vinod Kannan told pilots during a townhall on April 4, which was held to assuage their concerns after 150 flights were cancelled at Vistara and more than 200 delayed in the preceding three to four days, that 270 pilots didn’t sign the contract. This means that nearly 24.5% of Vistara’s total cockpit crew are opposed to the terms of the new contract, which cuts the guaranteed minimum flying allowance from 70 hours to 40 hours resulting in a pay cut of ₹80,000 to ₹1.4 lakh for First Officers (FOs or junior pilots). The airline has more than 1,100 pilots on its rolls.
Discontentment among pilots over various issues, including taxing flight schedules, delay in upgrade for FOs to the post of Pilot-in-Command resulting in resignations precipitated the disruptions that coincided with the announcement of the new pay structure two months ago, which had particularly angered the FOs.
“Yours is a unique case. There are 270 odd pilots who have not signed the contract,” Mr. Kannan said in response to a question from a pilot during a townhall held online. The pilot has complained that he was transferred from the old contract to the new contract despite his refusal, which he said was “illegal”. Pilots feel that the Human Resource (HR) department is steamrolling and coercing them to sign on the new contract.
The CEO added however that despite the refusal of a section of pilots to not accept the new pay structure under the revised contract “the stand [of the organisation] remains as communicated by the HR”. The HR had informed pilots that if they failed to sign on the new contract by March 15, they would be eliminated from the merged airline entity, apart from losing a one-time payout as well as their place in the sequence from upgrade.
The CEO has admitted that there was a failure to align network expansion with pilot strength leading to them working longer hours and flights being stretched too thin which caused a large number of cancellations and delays. But he dismissed media reports of First Officers, known to be vehemently opposed to the new contract, reporting sick in protest as untrue and said that the end of the financial year sees a large number of unutilised sick leaves being claimed by employees.
However, it is reliably learnt that Air India is likely to send 15-20 First Officers (FOs) on deputation to Vistara from next week as an equal number of pilots have left the airline to join IndiGo and Qatar.
Further, to improve the ratio of pilots and aircraft, six planes are expected to be shifted from Vistara and another 14 from Air India to the low-cost international subsidiary in the Tata Group, Air India Express. The planes being moved are all-economy aircraft.
The CEO has already said that the airline will continue to cancel flights till the end of April in order to create a buffer of pilots.
Pilot sources also blame senior vice-president of Flight Operations, Hamish Maxwell, for a toxic environment resulting from planning a network expansion while “miscalculating” the required number of crew. This spiralled out of control with the onset of the Summer Schedule from March 31, when Vistara planned a 30% increase in its flights precipitating the cancellations.
A mismanagement of pilot training has also raised eyebrows within the company on the alleged impact on safety, as well as resulted in a show-cause notice from the DGCA earlier this month for Vikram Mohan Dayal, vice-president, Training, said industry sources.
For instance, pilots were sent for their command upgrade on widebody aircraft such as the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787s resulting in a shortage of pilots for the narrowbody Airbus A320 aircraft they were flying. Moreover, several First Officers quit to join airlines such as Qatar and IndiGo as some of them faced delays of up to two years for an upgrade to Captaincy.
At the peak of the flight disruptions between March 31 to April 4, “base training” flights were being carried out in Jaipur instead of utilising the pilots for commercial flights.
“The situation is so dire, that the last two Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, including the one that joined the fleet last week on March 29, were ferried from Boeing’s aircraft Assembly facility in Charleston, the U.S., to New Delhi by the manufacturer’s pilots as the airline didn’t have enough of its own. The Dreamliner delivery was also delayed because of the same issue,” said a person in the know.
“Had Air India not sent its widebody pilots to Vistara, the latter would have to ground as many as three of its widebodies,” said another source.
Earlier this month, the DGCA is learnt to have also showcaused Vikram Dayal as pilots completed Zero Flight Time Training (ZFTT) simulator sessions after the 45-day mandatory window since completing the skills test had lapsed.
