Vistara to scale back by 10%: How it will affect passengers

Vistara on Sunday announced that it will scale back their operations by 25-30 flights daily which makes up to about 10 per cent of their capacity now. Most of the cancellations are in the domestic network as the Tata Group airline strives to stabilise its operations.

Vistara has been facing disruptions due to non-availability of crew and has been getting complaints regarding delays and cancellations.

While Vistara is hopeful of restoring and stabilising the operations for the month, let us take a look at what it means for the passengers.

Vistara had introduced more flights in March, including domestic and international, after it deployed an average of 49 international and 273 domestic flights in February.

The airlines so far has not mentioned which flights are going to be rolled back and whether it will be on different days to minimise the impact, as reported by Hindustan Times.

According to the report, this plan came with regard to the existing pilots in the airlines and not based on new pilots.

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.

How will this affect the passengers?

With Vistara's new updates, the latest being reduction of 10 per cent of its schedule, HT says that regular and new passengers will now be sceptical about booking a Vistara flight.

The data about Vistara's On Time Performance (OTP) showed after the lows of 51 per cent, it is now in line with the OTP with the industry.

"However, it is wise to check if the flight has operated in the past while one books and have updated contact details with the airline so that the airline can reach out if there are any changes to the booking," reported HT.

The report adds that Vistara's management could be at fault for bad planning during the peak time of summer when they get most passengers.

It also suggests that now is the time for Vistara to look deep into the issues of their pilots and the passengers, and address issues of delays and cancellations.

(With PTI inputs)