‘Worst is behind us’: Vistara CEO to staff after major flight disruptions

While acknowledging that things should have been planned better, Kannan said it has been a “learning experience”

Days after the Tata Group-owned Vistara airlines faced major flight disruptions, its chief executive officer, Vinod Kannan, assured employees in an internal email that the “worst is behind us” adding that the operations have stabilised.

Most of the cancellations were in the domestic network. (Reuters file photo)

In an e-mail sent out to employees, Kannan said the airline’s on-time performance (OTP) has risen to 89%.

“...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% on 9 April 2024 (second highest among all Indian airlines).”

The airline had to cancel at least 150 flights last week, due to the unavailability of the crew.

Taking note of the same, Kannan in his email said, “There were a multitude of reasons behind this (flight cancellations), including ATC (air traffic control) delays, bird hits, and maintenance activities early last month - all of which had a cascading effect on a highly optimised network. We were stretched in our pilot rosters and there was not enough resilience to withstand injects that we would otherwise have weathered.”

Kannan admitted that the disruptions were due to poor planning.

“We could and should have planned better, and this has been a learning experience for us which we will review thoroughly,” Kannan said.

The airline chief thanked its pilots and frontline staff for volunteering to work in the difficult situation.

“I would like to express my gratitude to our pilots for cooperating and stepping up to support operations. My sincere thanks to the frontline staff, and all customer-facing teams as well, who were faced with a daunting and escalating situation, which they managed with utmost professionalism”, he said.

Kannan stressed upon the airline’s efforts of bringing its operations to normalcy.

He said, “Let me reiterate that we are working with the relevant teams to introduce more resilience to our operations”.

The airline on Sunday announced to scale back their operation by around 25-30 flights per day which is roughly 10% of the capacity the airline was operating.

The flight cancellations due to the scaling back of operations, the airline said, were majorly in the domestic sector.

The airline, however, is mostly on our domestic network and much ahead of time to minimise inconvenience to customers.

“Additionally, we are working on the plans for May 24 and beyond”, he added.

The airline, however, said that it reached out to the impacted passengers and compensated them according to the regulatory mandate.

“As we emerge from this difficult phase, it is this commitment to being a customer-oriented airline that will help us bounce back stronger. We have worked hard over the last decade to become and remain the most loved airline in the country. While the events of the last week may seem like a setback, the hallmark of our organization has always been that we have bounced back from tough situations – and emerged stronger,” Kannan concluded.