Vistara CEO addresses pilots: Flight cancellations by Vistara continued to take place on the third consecutive day on Wednesday, which also saw the airline management hold a meeting with pilots to hold discussions on new contracts and rostering issues, people privy to the matter said.

The Tata Group airline cancelled around 26 flights on Wednesday, the sources in the know said. However, sources said if required, Vistara may carefully scale back network.

With a large number of pilots calling in sick to protest against the revised pay structure, Vistara cancelled over 100 flights in the last two days and aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked the airline company to submit a daily report on the cancellations and delays.

Top management of Vistara, including CEO Vinod Kannan, held a virtual meeting with pilots to discuss their problems, said sources. Officials of human resources among other departments attended the meeting.

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. 

(With PTI inputs)