Vistara reduces flights by 10%

Vistara on Sunday said it is reducing capacity by 10 per cent or around 25-30 flights daily as the full-service carrier strives to stabilise operations amid pilot woes. The airline, which was to operate more than 300 flights every day in the summer schedule that started on March 31, hopes to have stable operations in April. “We are carefully scaling back our operations by around 25-30 flights per day, i.e. roughly 10 per cent of the capacity we were operating. This will take us back to the same level of flight operations as at the end of February 2024, and provide the much-needed resilience and buffer in the rosters,” an airline spokesperson said in a statement. According to the carrier, these cancellations are done mostly in the domestic network and much ahead of time to minimise inconvenience to the customers. “All the affected passengers have already been re-accommodated on other flights, as applicable,” it said and added that the on-time performance has improved. Earlier this week, many pilots called in sick forcing the carrier to cancel a significant number of flights. On Friday, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan said that a stretched roster was the key reason for the flight disruptions. Some sections of the pilots have also raised concerns about the new contract that will result in pay revisions ahead of the airline’s proposed merger with Air India.