After facing significant flight disruptions recently, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan on Thursday told the airline staff that the “worst is behind us” and operations have already stabilised.
Pilot woes have forced the Tata Group airline to temporarily cut down capacity by 10 per cent or 25-30 flights daily.
While acknowledging that things should have been planned better, Kannan said it has been a “learning experience”.
He also said it has been a challenging start to the new financial year and the airline faced significant operational disruption from March 31 to April 2.
“The anxiety and frustration felt by our customers were matched in even measure to the pain that all of us felt in seeing our much-loved brand drawing negative commentary from various quarters... I assure you that the worst is behind us, and we have already stabilised our operations, with our on-time performance (OTP) increasing to 89 per cent on 9 April 2024 (second highest among all Indian airlines),” he said in a message to the staff.
The full-service carrier has around 6,500 people, including about 1,000 pilots.
In the wake of the disruptions, the top management of the airline held a virtual meeting with the pilots. One of the reasons for the disruptions was also that some sections of the pilots reported sick to protest against the new contract that will result in pay revision.
According to Kannan, there were a multitude of reasons for the disruptions, including ATC delays, bird hits, and maintenance activities early last month.
“We were stretched in our pilot rosters and there was not enough resilience to withstand injects that we would otherwise have weathered. We could and should have planned better, and this has been a learning experience for us which we will review thoroughly,” the Vistara chief said.