Vistara cancelled another 61 flights on Tuesday, a day after it witnessed 49 flight cancellations due to pilot “unavailability”, leading to the aviation safety regulator cracking the whip on the airline and asking it to submit daily figures of cancellations and delays.
The airline announced on Monday that it will temporarily reduce the number of flights to deal with the problem of crew unavailability and also deploy larger aircraft like the B787-9 Dreamliner and A321neo on select domestic routes to combine flights or accommodate more number of customers.
Sources have blamed a multitude of factors for flight cancellations, including discontentment among a section of pilots who have gone on a silent protest following a new pay structure announced in mid-February ahead of its merger with Air India, a lack of adequate buffer pilots, as well as alleged malpractices in pilot rostering.
