Vistara has offered a “top-up” salary to its First Officers after it had recently faced a large number of flight cancellations partly due to unrest among a section of its cockpit crew over a new pay structure announced ahead of its merger with Air India, according to pilot sources.
The airline has also offered to evolve a remuneration for pilots who were unable to get at least 70-hours of flying in a month due to training-related delays on the part of the airline, the airline’s CEO Vinod Kannan assured in a townhall with pilots in the third week of May, a Vistara spokesman confirmed. First Officers were unhappy as the new pay structure announced in February reduced the minimum guaranteed hours of flying from 70 hours to 40 hours for all crew, resulting in the junior pilots facing a pay cut of about ₹80,000-₹1,40,000 on a monthly salary of ₹3.4 lakh.
In the May townhall, Mr. Kannan had assured pilots that most pilots would continue to still have 70 hours of flying. He also added that the small fraction of pilots who were not able to break even, or earn in the new regime what they were earning in the old regime after similar hours of flying, would receive a ‘top up’. Airline sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that this top up amount was ₹5,000 for all First Officers.
Since pilots had also complained about hectic rosters that were not allowing them a work-life balance, and often resulting in them being pulled out for duties with just a 12-hour notice, Mr. Kannan assured them that the airline would study data on key parameters such as the number of times a pilot’s request for leave was not granted, or cases of pilots being asked to report for duty with a 12-hour notice on their off days as well as deviations from the published roster. The CEO also said that more pilots were being recruited to address the gap between the number of flights and pilots needed to operate them.
