[Omkar]

Tata group-owned Vistara has faced more than 150 flight cancellations and numerous delays over the past few days, as pilots have gone on mass sick leave — the aviation industry’s version of a strike. After a worsening situation over the weekend, things came to a head on Monday when nearly 80 of the scheduled daily 300 flights were cancelled, and 90 were delayed. Tuesday again saw more than 50 cancellations, and many more delays.

At the heart of the situation is an HR (human resources) issue. There is significant discontentment among a large section of Vistara pilots, mainly first officers, over their new compensation structure — a part of the pay harmonisation exercise prior to the completion of Vistara’s merger with the Tata group’s flagship Air India.

Announced in February, the new pay structure guarantees pay for only 40 flying hours (a month), down from 70 hours previously. This, many first officers fear, could drastically reduce their take-home salaries. Early in March, a number of Vistara pilots called in sick, ostensibly to protest against the new pay structure. This too had led to flight cancellations and delays, though the airline did not cite crew shortage as the reason at the time.

In response, Vistara’s management is learnt to have issued an ultimatum to its unhappy pilots — accept the new pay structure, or give up the one-time payout that comes with it, as well as the opportunity to work with Air India post-merger. But pay is not all that Vistara pilots are unhappy about. Many are concerned about their career progression post the Air India merger, which is expected to be completed sometime next year. Some are also understood to be unhappy with the company over its haphazard rostering practices that pilots claim seriously impact their work-life balance.

Apart from merging Air India and Vistara, the salt-to-software conglomerate is in the process of merging its low-cost carriers Air India Express and AIX Connect (formerly Air Asia India). Once both the mergers are complete, the Air India group will operate two airlines — full-service carrier Air India, and low-cost Air India Express. Singapore Airlines, which has a 49% stake in Vistara, will own 25.1% of the merged Air India.

Apart from bringing about pay parity, integrating employees from different organisational cultures can be extremely daunting, causing friction over seniority, chain of command, career progression, etc. Case in point is the 2007 Air India-Indian Airlines merger, when both were under government control. The consequent HR mess took years, multiple court cases, and government-appointed committees to be sorted.

Source - The Indian Express

[V.Narayan]

The absorption of Vistara into Air India may make sense to the shareholders but makes no sense to the fare paying customers. We passengers will lose Vistara and its superior service and better trained cabin crew without getting back anything in return. Air India, in my assessment, is headed to becoming a very large averagely run mass service with lots of convenient connections. It won't be terrible but nothing in the last 2 years has indicated it will have top class passenger service. We will have basically 3 airlines to choose from all with mediocre service - Indigo, Air India and Air India Express. Spice is so bad it doesn't count. And Akasa is still too small.

[Turbanator]

Someone should buy Vistara from TATA and save this airline. Or, TATA should let it run independently, which I doubt they will. Vistara crews are mostly wonderful, and their planes are tidy. Even if TATA has to merge, they should first wait for Air India to come back to a certain level.

[SuperGirl_Dad]

Can Vistara be the premium service within Air India? - Like 1AC premium over 2nd AC train seat. Will passengers be willing to pay higher for the premium service. Maybe they could try this model, as it can be a revenue generator in dense sectors.

[neofromcapone]

In 2009, the Tata's bought the landmark hotel Sea Rock in Bandra Bandstand for 680 crs. This was opposite Taj Land's End.
The combined inventory strength (Taj Lands End + new hotel on Sea Rock land) would be at least 1,000 rooms, multiple ballrooms, event spaces and convention centres.

Wanna know what they did with it?
Within 6-8 months for acquiring it, Razed it to the ground.

Vistara as a brand is big in India.
Zilch outside India. Air India has a brand recall all over the world.
And they are building a world class airline to compete with the global majors like Emirates, and take Air India to the top 5 airlines in the world.
They need to pull all their airlines resources into one cohesive unit
Vistara will fly into the sunset to maybe rise again in the future.
Wish Air India all the best as they have chosen the more difficult route to fly.

[rpunwani]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Someone should buy Vistara from TATA and save this airline. Or, TATA should let it run independently, which I doubt they will. Vistara crews are mostly wonderful, and their planes are tidy. Even if TATA has to merge, they should first wait for Air India to come back to a certain level.

There was a clear indication that Vistara would not merge into Air India until Air India service came upto the level of Vistara. I believe Campbell Wilson had said this a while back. Hopefully with AI refurbishing its legacy aircraft they will improve rapidly

[binaiks]

Originally Posted by rpunwani

There was a clear indication that Vistara would not merge into Air India until Air India service came upto the level of Vistara. I believe Campbell Wilson had said this a while back. Hopefully with AI refurbishing its legacy aircraft they will improve rapidly

Going by the recent posts on Social Media, Vistara is very quickly matching AI standards - Looks like Mr Campbell meant they'll bring down Vistara's standards to that of Air India, in anticipation of the merger - not the other way round.

[rpunwani]

Originally Posted by binaiks

Going by the recent posts on Social Media, Vistara is very quickly matching AI standards - Looks like Mr Campbell meant they'll bring down Vistara's standards to that of Air India, in anticipation of the merger - not the other way round.

The recent issue was with the proposed new agreements with the pilots where they had to exhaust their sick leave by 31st March. In addition there was a reduction of fixed flying hours. Having said that, Vistara is almost back to normalcy.

I believe every ultimate gain comes with pain. The Tata management is bringing all AI / Vistara employees on parity - which to me is fair. I would definitely look at the positive side of the situation now that >98% of the pilots have signed the revised salary agreement.

I am looking forward to AI having the same stellar reputation it had in the 60's & 70's.

[mpksuhas]

Not specific to Vistara - AI merger, but related to the service expectation from AI.
While we expect AI to regain its past glory / compete with the middle east airlines on cabin comforts, I feel it may be expecting bit too much.

I am not saying with the will, AI wont be able to do that. My point is, is it required for them to do that? From a business point, the additional revenue from a mediocre airline vs that of a superb customer oriented airline won't justify that is my view.

In other words, the reason why middle east airlines have to get promote themselves as having more than average luxury quotient is since major chunk of their customers are transit customers. Not those who have their final destination in their hub.

So for example if I am looking for a flight from Bangalore to San Francisco, the middle east airlines have to be more desirable than a direct AI flight for the same sector. This goes for Europe based connections too.

For AI, they don't need to compete on luxury, they just need to have a direct fixture and make sure it is on time as much as possible.

Currently, there is huge chunk of traffic out of India which is handled by foreign airlines, AI can keep eating in to that for years to come.

Other Indian airlines - Indigo & Akasa are anyway LCC, hence the bar is low. Maybe some years later, a new full service carrier comes up domestically, which may be the space which Vistara went out from. Till that time why would AI bother?