It is not a giant balloon. It is not an airplane.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

New Delhi:

The song ‘Kal Ho Na Ho‘ played as Vistara’s Goa-Bengaluru flight landed at its destination on Sunday, invoking nostalgia among crew and members a day before the carrier’s time in the Indian aviation landscape was to come to an end.

The full-service carrier Vistara, which is a 51:49 per cent joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, is all set to merge with Air India on November 12. In an Instagram post, the airline said, “As the plane ascends, so do our dreams; let’s glide toward the future, where the sky isn’t the limit, but just the beginning.”

Why Is Vistara Merging With Air India?

Singapore’s flagship carrier announced a plan to merge the decade-old Vistara and Tata-owned Air India in November 2022, in a bid to create a dominant full-service airline in the domestic and international markets.

The merger process, however, was anything but smooth, with problems like pilot shortages causing widespread flight cancellations and Vistara crew protesting over plans to align their salary structures with Air India proving to be hurdles.

As the merger concludes on Monday, Vistara’s 49 per cent owner Singapore Airlines will have a 25.1 per cent stake in Air India. Singapore Airlines will make an additional investment of Rs 3,194.5 crore in Tata Group-owned airline.

How Is Air India Orchestrating The Transition For Fliers?

Air India has deployed additional resources, including help desk kiosks, at touch points and airports to ensure a smooth experience for Vistara passengers. There will be “customer support staff wearing ‘How may I assist you?’ Air India x Vistara branded t-shirts for support”.

The staff will work with airport security to guide customers with old Vistara tickets to the nearest help desk or to Air India customer support staff and deploy advisory on self-service kiosks. In due course, Vistara airport ticketing offices and check-in terminals will become that of Air India.

Vistara aircraft will be identified by a special four-digit Air India code beginning with the digit ‘2’.

Over the last few months, 2,70,000 customers who had booked Vistara flights have been migrated to Air India, and more than 4.5 million Vistara loyalty programme members are being migrated to Air India’s loyalty programme. Further, customers calling the Vistara contact centre will be automatically directed to Air India representatives, who will ensure a seamless experience during this transition.

The integrated entity will have a fleet of more than 200 planes, offering connectivity to 90 domestic and international destinations. Air India’s narrowbody fleet continues to be upgraded with new aircraft being delivered, legacy aircraft being refitted with entirely new interiors and Vistara’s catering now also extended to Air India.

Air India’s widebody fleet has also been augmented with the entry of six A350 aircraft that have started to fly between Delhi and London, and Delhi and New York, the airline said.

In the first month after the merger, nearly 1,15,000 passengers who had purchased Vistara tickets pre-merger are expected to fly on unified Air India.

A Managerial Reshuffle

Vistara chief executive officer Vinod Kanan, who has also been holding the role of Chief Integration Officer for the merger of the two entities, will continue in the latter role post-merger. Besides, he will be a member of the management committee and report directly to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson, a company statement said.

Deepak Rajawat, Chief Commercial Officer of Vistara will take up the position of Chief Financial Officer at the low-cost arm Air India Express, reporting to its chief executive officer Aloke Singh and also support Air India Group CFO Sanjay Sharma in strategic initiatives and projects. Meanwhile, Vikas Agarwal, the current CFO of Air India Express, will move to a new role in Air India.

Senior vice president for flight operations at Vistara Hamish Maxwell has assumed an advisory role to Air India Express CEO Aloke Singh while Pushpinder Singh, Chief Operations Officer of Air India Express, returns to flying, as per the statement. A successor for Singh will be announced in due course.

Deepa Chadha and Vinod Bhatt, senior vice president HR & Corporate Affairs and Chief Information Officer of Vistara respectively, will take on senior roles at other Tata group companies, the statement said adding that Vistara CFO Niyant Maru, who had continued beyond his superannuation date to see through the completion of the merger, will retire at the end of his current term.

All other Air India Group CXO roles and reporting lines roles will remain unchanged.

Why Are Air India Pilots Miffed?

A section of Air India pilots is unhappy in the run-up to the Vistara merger over different retirement age limits for pilots of the two Tata Group-owned airlines as the management is yet to address the issue, sources told news agency PTI.

At Air India, the retirement age for pilots and other staff is 58 years, whereas at Vistara it is 60 years. “While the management was prompt in bringing parity in terms of salary structure and other working conditions of the employees of the two airlines as part of the merger process, it is yet to address the issue of two different retirement age limits,” a source said on the condition of anonymity.

Air India Only Full-Service Carrier In Country

Vistara, like many other airlines, entered Indian aviation after the liberalisation of foreign direct investment norms. In 2012, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-led UPA government allowed foreign airlines to buy up to 49 per cent in a domestic carrier, which later resulted in the now defunct Jet Airways securing 24 per cent stake from Gulf carrier Etihad besides the birth of AirAsia India and Vistara.

With operations commencing on started flying on January 9, 2015, Vistara soon became synonymous with quality food and service and cultivated a loyal customer base. Meanwhile, Kingfisher went belly up in 2012 while Air Sahara, which was acquired by Jet Airways and renamed as JetLite, sank with Jet Airways in 2019.

Vistara’s winding up will reduce the number of full-service carriers just one from five in a span of over 17 years.

Nostalgic Fliers Bid Goodbye

Social media was flooded with posts from loyal Vistara fliers, who remembered the airline for delivering the “new feeling” in travel. Many posted pictures from their travels on board the carrier.

The crew was nostalgic during in-flight announcements and in true Vistara fashion played Kal Ho Na Ho upon landing!
This brand deserves to live on through case studies and employee accounts.
(h/t to @TheSanjivKapoor for sharing insights from his time at Vistara and Jet) 3/4

— Anubhav Goyal (@anubhavgo) November 10, 2024

Farewell to Vistara

India’s finest domestic airline, as it takes its final flight today

Since 2015, Vistara has set new standards for service and comfort in Indian skies

Thank you, Vistara, for making every journey memorable!

Let us fly high to new horizons with Air… pic.twitter.com/MsenFCAK0y

— Parth Suba (@parthsuba77) November 10, 2024

Plus lot more over the years, too many to note, but a few special ones!

Jan 2023, the 8th anniversary special flight – #UK08 with the figure 8 over the Arabian Sea & a fun 4-segment day out with some great people! pic.twitter.com/qqjLr0wBFa

— AJ (@OntheRoadAJ) November 10, 2024

IndiGo Steps In

IndiGo Airlines is set to introduce business class from mid-November on a handful of domestic flights, starting with the Delhi-Mumbai route, as it seeks to tap a growing crop of premium fliers. IndiGo’s business class foray marks a departure in strategy for the no-frills carrier and a sign of growing demand for premium services in the country.

Currently, the airline only has economy class. It has a fleet of more than 360 aircraft and operates around 2,000 flights daily.

With inputs from PTI

New York:

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun will likely face tough questions Tuesday when a Senate panel grills the executive on safety problems, manufacturing missteps and alleged efforts to intimidate whistleblowers.

The hearing, an examination of “Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture,” follows an April session of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations featuring a Boeing engineer who testified that he was punished for raising safety questions about the top-selling 787 Dreamliner and 777.

“Five years ago, Boeing made a promise to overhaul its safety practices and culture. That promise proved empty, and the American people deserve an explanation,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said earlier this month.

“Years of putting profits ahead of safety, stock price ahead of quality, and production speed ahead of responsibility has brought Boeing to this moment of reckoning, and its hollow promises can no longer stand.”

The whistleblower allegations surrounding the 787 and 777 are only one of the myriad issues facing Boeing that could come up on Tuesday.

The company is also implementing safety upgrades under the tight supervision of the Federal Aviation Administration after a fuselage panel on a 737 MAX blew out mid-flight in January, necessitating an emergency landing and leading to a brief grounding of some MAX planes.

The Department of Justice meanwhile concluded in May that Boeing could be prosecuted for violating a criminal settlement following two fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, off Indonesia and in Ethiopia.

Next steps around a decision on whether to prosecute will come next month.

Calhoun has previously apologized for the Alaska Airlines incident and announced production halts and other steps to improve safety and quality assurance.

In Calhoun’s opening statement, released by Boeing ahead of the hearing, the CEO reiterated those points, emphasizing that the company has strict policies prohibiting retaliation against employees who report problems.

“Our culture is far from perfect, but we are taking action and making progress,” Calhoun said. “We understand the gravity, and we are committed to moving forward with transparency and accountability, while elevating employee engagement.”

Whistleblower alleges safety issues 

At the April 17 hearing, witnesses painted a disturbing picture of a company that blew off safety questions and sidelined critics as it chased faster production and bigger profits.

The star witness was engineer Sam Salehpour who went public with allegations that, because of flawed manufacturing processes, the Dreamliner could suffer from premature fatigue, resulting in a potentially catastrophic accident because of excessively large gaps in the plane’s assembly.

Boeing has pointed to extensive testing that it says proves the 787 is safe.

Salehpour also testified that he was blackballed by company higher-ups and feared for his personal well-being after raising concerns about safety.

In connection with the probe, Blumenthal and Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, sent a letter to Calhoun seeking records that would shed light on Salehpour’s allegations about the 787 and 777, as well as records relating to Boeing’s whistleblower policies and protocols.

The same two senators also sent a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker related to the allegations, as well as other ongoing Boeing-related matters, such as a six-week FAA audit of the company following the Alaska Airlines incident.

Joining the hearing will be family members who lost relatives in the 2018 and 2019 MAX crashes, which together claimed 346 lives.

“I flew from England to Washington, DC, to hear in-person what the Boeing CEO has to say to the Senate and to the world about any safety improvements made at that corporation,” said Zipporah Kuria, who lost her father in the 2019 crash.

“I also continue to press the US government to hold Boeing and its corporate executives criminally responsible for the deaths of 346 people. We will not rest until we see justice.”

Calhoun, who will be accompanied at the hearing by Boeing Chief Engineer Howard McKenzie, apologized to the MAX families in his written remarks, saying “we are deeply sorry for your losses.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The government’s biggest claim to success in aviation since 2014 is building “74 airports in seven years”, as opposed to the same number built in the seven decades since Independence. However, only 11 of these airports have actually been built from scratch, while 15 airports have fallen into disuse over this period, due to the collapse of almost half the routes launched under the regional connectivity scheme (RCS).

In the recent past, airport development has primarily been undertaken under the RCS, which was launched in 2017 to improve air connectivity for smaller cities, and to redevelop under-utilised airports. This largely involved the revival of old airstrips that were either lying unused or were used sparsely.

The government launched 479 routes to revive these airports, out of which 225 have since ceased operations, according to the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s response to questions from The Hindu.

Beyond the stats

Only 11 greenfield airports have become operational since May 2014, according to the Minister of State for Civil Aviation V.K. Singh’s reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha on July 24. These include the airports at Mopa in Goa, Shirdi and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra, Kalaburagi and Shivamogga in Karnataka, Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh, Orvakal (Kurnool) in Andhra Pradesh, Durgapur in West Bengal, Pakyong in Sikkim, Kannur in Kerala, and Donyi Polo in Arunachal Pradesh.

The figure of 74 new airports, regularly trotted out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, includes nine heliports and two waterdromes. These two waterdromes, built for seaplanes between Gujarat’s Gandhinagar and the Statue of Unity in Kevadia, closed down soon after the PM’s launch in October 2020, as SpiceJet discontinued its flights after a “change in technical requirements”, the airline told The Hindu in response to a questionnaire.

As many as 15 airports, including Sikkim’s only airport in Pakyong, and those in Punjab’s Adampur, Pathankot, and Ludhiana do not see any flights anymore, according to a senior government official.

Subsidising routes

The RCS, also known as the Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik scheme, was launched with the aim of taking flying to the masses by improving air connectivity for tier-2 and tier-3 cities, and subsidising air travel on these routes.

The routes are awarded after a bidding process, and the winning airlines are given certain incentives, along with viability gap funding (or a subsidy) equivalent to 50% of the seating capacity on their aircraft. In return, the airlines sell 50% of their seats at a flat rate of ₹2,500 per hour of flight, in order to make air travel affordable. The cost of the subsidy is borne by Indian airlines flying on non-RCS routes, who pay an RCS levy of ₹15,000 per departure, as per the latest revision that came into effect in April 2023. The airlines further pass the levy on to their passengers on non-RCS flights. A total sum of ₹2,038 crore has been collected as RCS levy.

The scheme also set aside a sum of ₹4,500 crore to revive old airports by recarpeting runways and erecting terminal buildings. Of these, 46 airports have been redeveloped by the Airports Authority of India, and the remaining by State governments and Public Sector Units. The government has so far spent ₹3,490 crore on these airports. The Finance Ministry approved another ₹1,000 crore for this purpose in May this year, for a period of three years.

Commercially unviable

Of the 225 routes that have ceased operations, 128 routes shut down even before completing the mandatory three-year period under the scheme. Airlines found 70 of these routes to be commercially unviable despite the subsidy, while the remaining 58 have been cancelled either due to “non-compliance” by the airline operator, or the airline surrendering routes, or the airline companies shutting down, as in the case of Air Deccan and Air Odisha.

As many as 97 routes shut down after completing the three-year period during which the government provides support. The objective of the scheme was that after the three-year period, airlines would be able to sustain operations on their own without government support, but out of the 155 routes that have completed three years, only 58 have survived.

SpiceJet, which bagged 74 routes — or every one in five routes awarded to airlines under the scheme — now flies on only 20 of them, forcing the AAI to send it multiple show-cause notices, warning that its security deposit would be forfeited.

The airline said it could not operate 12 routes as airports such as Thanjavur, Moradabad, Saharanpur and Ayodhya were not ready for operations. For the remaining routes, the airline said that it “tried hard to establish these markets, but passenger demand remained very low.”