The pilots' strike forced an Indian airline to cancel flights and operate its largest aircraft on domestic routes. Vistara was bought not long ago by the Tata group, which soon after partnered with Singapore Airlines to buy Air India, creating a major Indian national airline to compete with IndiGo.
In this merger, Vistara pilots felt disadvantaged, as the minimum number of guaranteed flying hours per month (which in turn constitute the basic salary) would be the same as Air India pilots, ranging from 70 hours to 40 hours. month, a decrease of 42%.
Because of this radical reduction in the “minimum wage” and the extremely tight schedule with no pilots, many pilots decided to obtain a medical certificate claiming fatigue, exhaustion and other ailments, as reported by Reuters. BNN Bloomberg.
Another 21 pilots, 15 qualified to fly Airbus A320neo family aircraft and 6 on 787 Dreamliner aircraft, resigned after the change in payment rules was announced.
With these absences, the company was forced to cancel 106 flights today, most of them outside the country, using planes and crews from international flights on domestic routes. The company stated that it is working to solve the problem and has advanced its dialogue with the pilots until the protest stops.
