New Delhi: As Vistara continues to grapple with the “unavailability” of pilots, prompting the airline to cancel several flights, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan on Wednesday held a virtual meeting with pilots and ensured better rostering. According to sources, the airline operations are likely to normalise by the weekend. This comes ahead of its merger with Air India which the airline announced in mid-February.  

The airline had on Monday announced that it would reduce its numbers of daily flights and deploy larger aircraft to accommodate more passengers.

On Monday, Vistara had cancelled 49 flights whereas 61 flights were cancelled due to pilot “unavailability”, leading to the aviation safety regulator cracking the whip on the airline.

The airline was asked to submit daily figures of cancellations and delays to the aviation safety regulator.

During the three-day period till Wednesday, the airline has utilised pilots up to the maximum extent as many first officers of Vistara hit the 100 hour-limit of allowed flying per month.

Why Vistara is facing crisis?

Vistara is facing flights disruptions lately as the pilots have been discontent over the new compensation structure the airline has offered. As per the contract, there will be a fixed pay for 40 hours instead of 70 hours while junior pilots said that they will have to operate for 80 hours to earn the same as they do now, which lead them to go a silent protest.