welcome to this special show. I'm Tamanna Nadar now India's third largest domestic carrier by market share, Vista will cut about 30 flights a day in all of April. This means a little under 1000 flights of Vista will be cancelled in this month. Now the decision has been positioned by Vista as one to avoid unforeseen cancellations. This means, simply put, it's better to cancel flights well in time, instead of having angry passengers queuing up at the airport for hours in one case for 14 hours. So what exactly is the problem? In its official release, the airline describes the scaling back as a way to buffer the rosters. In simple terms, less flights means less pilots required and gives the airline time to deal with the pilots who have been calling in sick. So what really is the issue in this special Today? We're hoping to deep dive and delve into every aspect of what's happening with Vista because, frankly, it's not just a question of one airline, some cancelled flights and angry passengers. It's putting a spotlight on what perhaps is one of the biggest challenges not just for Indian aviation but for the Tata group that is trying to bring four of its airline brands together. So let's get down to it. Is this an issue of too few pilots at a strength of about 1000 pilots? For Varro, that doesn't really seem to be the case. Is it an issue of pilots that are being unreasonable? Perhaps not because they've had to deal with a possibility of their guaranteed flying hours going down by nearly half. Now, as per a Hindu report, it effectively means a pay cut of up to 1.4 lacs out of a salary of 3.4 lacs for a junior pilot per month. Is it, then a larger issue? Is this simply mismanagement by HR honchos who thought pushing down stringent leave rules and pay cuts would go through? What does this mean for the Tata's efforts to consolidate their airline business? Here are some of the questions that need to be answered for one. Can Tatas ensure this Tara's issues won't spill over to Air India? Is this truly at the end of the day, just pure and simple mismanagement? Was it fair in the first place to just say one day that hey, you're merging with Air India, so you will be paid as much as pilots in Air India are paid, which is 40 hours of flying guaranteed hours. This is what they had cut down to in pandemic. So all of this is what we're going to be discussing today on the show. But I want to start with this report filed by my colleague Adia Rao. It's an exclusive and we, of course at ND TV profit have been on top of every nuance of this story. So let me come to Adia first. Now, as you've reported this morning, Adam V Tara has been borrowing from Air India some first officers from Air India to fill in the gaps. Is that going to be enough? Well, what I'm picking up from my sources right now is that Vista is going to borrow first officers effectively from Air India to fill in the gaps that Vista has been facing after the first officers have been calling sick due to the new pay cuts and the new pay structure that they are trying to introduce Now, what it essentially means here is that if first officers are coming to vista to resolve the entire issue. These first officers will have to go through a mandatory training of 40 days. Now, this training of 40 days will include the training of their ground training and as well as it will be followed by the other trainings which will essentially become a training training module of 40 days. Now, After this, one more point that needs to be highlighted here is that Air India itself is dealing with a crisis of first officers. Right now, they have been flying on a one way command is what my sources are telling me now. What is one way one way command here means that the Air India cockpit is being handled by two captains. Now, when there are two captains flying in aircraft for Air India, how are they possibly sending first officers on deputation to Vista to handle their operations? There are a lot of alarms here back to all right, so how will they handle it? Is the question Now remember, a few days ago, the unions of other Tata Airlines also altogether wrote to the chairman saying that this is not just a vista problem. It's a larger problem now, Before we get to our experts and try and understand what this larger problem is. Is it just a question of who blinks first or is it really about putting pilots under stress? I'm going to go across to my colleague Pragati Oy, who has been tracking this story very, very closely. This all started on 31st March pragati, and all of a sudden, in a span of three or four days, you had news that about 100 and 50 flights had been cancelled. What happened since then? And has there been enough clarity from the start on what the issue is? No, you're absolutely right. While the issue was brewing in mid March itself, it's very interesting how it started expanding and all the activity from the management side and the pilot side and the union side happened in last week of April, which is like the previous week or the first week of April, while passengers were complaining of flight cancellations in the end of March itself and not just cancellation delays as well. So basically a lot of adjustments on Vista's part in the flight operations, all that answers coming from the management all started after the Ministry of Civil Aviation stepped in. So let me bring in some context for our viewers and they can see it on our screens as well. What timeline of events has been and all the action has happened in the last for five days. So while towards the end of March, flight adjustments started happening on 2nd April was the time when Ministry of Civil Aviation stepped in, asking answers from Vista as to what were the reasons of changes in the schedules of the flights and how were they compensating the pilots and the passengers as to whatever was blowing out next? That was the first official communication that we got to know from our sources. On 3rd April Vista's CEO was addressing the pilots in a town hall and that was obviously reported exclusively by N profit. First in the afternoon that Vista Pilot Vista CEO spoke to the pilots asked them what their queries was and assured them that there will be answers given to them. Now come to 4th April. We are seeing more reaction from pilot unions as well that two pilot unions are now writing to Tata Group chairperson as well and are saying that there is a larger issue at play in Tata Group Airlines. So clearly, they are saying was that the issue is not just about Vista. While Vista pilots demands are very valid, there are issues extending to other airlines as well. I understand this clearly through all of this because I've seen the public sort of statements coming in from Vista and we're showing those on your screen as well. Um, you reported on the town hall at any point is the management saying that? OK, we understand that you're not happy to accept essentially a drop in minimum flying hours because that's the core of the issue which is going on right? Is that being acknowledged? Is that being talked about so tamana whatever my understanding has been and what statements, official statements that we have from Mr So Far, Not in absolute words Or maybe not, But yes, the management has said in simple words that to the pilots that we understand your concerns and we will address them if the concerns are about the flying cars, the rostering, the pay, they haven't specified them per SE, but yes, at some places, the management has definitely said that we understand pilots' concerns. We understand that there are rostering issues that there are. What do you mean by rostering issues? So rostering issues. What we have understood from our sources is that pilots are being made to fly more hours than it is accepted. While we haven't heard officially from Vista on that, let me be very clear about it. We did send some queries to Vista on different days, depending on the developments we were getting, but we did not hear back there. So whatever pilots and other sources have communicated to us that while the allotted time is supposed to be around 70 hours a month, there were times when pilots were flying more than that. So there were some instances also where pilots were saying Yes, there are pilots, but they were not able to understand as to why they were not being called for duty. OK, so OK, as I understand it, let's put it simply, there are some pilots who are flying too much, and there are others who are not making the minimum cut. That's the understanding that we got from us. So So both conditions are a problem because if there's a pilot which is being over rostered or who is being over rostered. That could be a safety hazard. If there are those who are not getting their minimum guaranteed hours, That's a problem as well. Let's just get some perspective on this and thank you for that. Pragati. Ajay Ahani, editor of Life from a Lounge.com is with me. So is Sanjay Lazar, aviation expert and author. Thank you to both of you for joining us. And, uh, you know, we just want to get some perspective on the show. Uh, Sanjay, let me come to you first. From the point of view of pilots, on the face of it, if there is enough work, should there really be an issue? If 40 hours becomes the guaranteed flying time? Because if there is such huge demand, you are going to make it up to 70 hours. In any case, isn't it? Give us some perspective of why this is the crux of the issue as far as pilots are concerned. Good afternoon, Tamana. Thank you very much. And first of all, let me compliment both your, uh you know, your your journalists, they've done a great job gone very deep into the details, and I cannot refute any of those details. They are banged. Let's let's get to the point that you asked you asked about there is enough flying. Why are pilots complaining now? You know I'll take you back three years prior to covid. Four years. Uh, the norm was 70 hours. Whether it was Air India or Indigo or VAR, everybody was getting 70 hours during the pandemic. Uh, it got slashed in the national carrier and then, you know, other airlines cut back a little bit to to tide through the pandemic post pandemic. Uh, you know, the the I CPA and the IP G, uh, kept insisting, Let me go back to 70 hours. Vista offered his pilot 70 hours. Indigo offered his pilot 70 hours. So, you know, essentially about 70% of the market was paying 70 hours. Now, what is guaranteed flying? A pilot has a limited shelf life. He flies 30 days a month barring his weekly offs and his, you know, rest periods on FDTL. So he has to be utilised by the company. So essentially a guaranteed flying concept came in or 20 years ago. You know, it was flying hours in the late nineties in Air India. So what he does is he's available, you know, 30 days in the month. He doesn't take any leaves, et cetera. He if he if he does 40 hours and the company cannot utilise him for 70 hours, they pay him 70 hours guarantee. On the other hand, if they want to utilise him to 70 hours, he's available for them. Because that is his regulatory allowed flying. He's allowed to fly, you know, uh, up up to about 100 hours, 1890 hours a month because he goes up to 800 hours a year. So it depends how you set, you know, divide that. So pilots are complaining that they're taking away the 70 hours reducing their minimum earning per month. And then there is no certainty once they go into the larger airline, whether there will be enough for them or not. Now, the second point you've made, which is why are they complaining of, you know, fatigue or or I think one of your your colleagues made it is because they are flying time off to time off. They are flying, you know, roster to roster and inhuman almost in human, you know, uh, social conditions. So a lot of them want breathing space, and some of them are not flying well, like you rightly pointed out. So there is a difference, you know, Because, like she said, they are doing one way command on some airlines. They have transferred first officers already. I believe 24 have come in into Vista. I believe there are another 10 or 15 coming in in these next two weeks. So you will see a large influx of pilots here. On the other hand, we go back to one week ago when, you know, we were told by Vista nothing is wrong. Few pilots fell sick then to have a town hall, then to admit, you know, 15 or 20 pilots have resigned and now to say sorry and we will be back to normal. And we are cutting 1000 flights. So Sanjay, just give me a sense. Is this industry norm? What is the what is the market leader offering? Market leaders offering 70 hours, period. So 70% 65% of the market, which is indigo, is offering that Air India was asking for that pilots were asking. But then the Goa incident happened last year. So, you know, they signed on 40 years. This is currently seven. They're asking their pilots to go to 40 years. So that's the That's the crux of the issue. At the end of the day, you're asking people to take a pay cut when most of the industry is offering a higher level of pay. Now remember, this is for a job, which is an essential safety job. I just want you to put into perspective what this move is and how you see it as a strategic move from the Tatars. And we put some of those questions. Is this simply HR mismanagement that you thought you could push it down? Because at the end of the day, pilots said, Hey, I'm going to take my leaves to add insult to injury. In a sense, at least from the pilot's perspective, all your leaves lapse on March 31st. You can't roll it over either. So now you're thinking that Anyway, I'm getting a pay cut. My leaves won't go further. I might as well take all of them. Is that what happened? Yeah, sort of. That's what happened? I think, uh, there are certain policies at this, uh, which, uh, obviously, look, it's not that the CEO is sitting on top of this whole situation on a daily basis, right? He must be getting a report and dispatches and everything, but he's not, uh, micromanaging the situation. There's a head of rostering and there's a rostering department, which we do a lot of things. Uh, what I assume happened was that there was a certain stress that built up into the system. Uh, what they did not factor in was that it was, uh, leave expiring on 31st March. And in spite of the fact that it's quite sick leave if you call in sick, nobody's coming to check. Right? So everyone, uh, decided to take a day off. Many people decided to take the day off. I mean, and, uh, they did not have enough people to replace these, uh, 70 odd people who went to leave on the on the last day of March or the 1st 2nd day of April. So that's where the whole system, uh, came apart. And we're still dealing with about 20 flight cancellations a day. Uh, and Uh, yeah. The other part of the problem is the fact that, uh, there are these people who are being asked to take over roughly about, uh, 40% pay cut. Uh, which, uh, I think in today's era is, uh, unheard of. And, uh, just remember that, uh, the other the market leader is going to be willingly happy to absorb them if they are going to be released from. In fact, 15 people are rumoured to have left for the other carrier. OK, so you're saying one second. Let me get this straight. You're saying that the next leg of the problem could be an exodus? Because if there is higher guaranteed flying hours available on offer, there is no real reason why anyone should stick around for a, you know, a lower level. Now, Sanjay, I just want to understand this now. Between the 31st of March and April 4th, maybe it was all about the sick leaves. What has compelled Vista to announce flight cuts for the whole of April? How is that going to help? Is it because there are insufficient pilots? Is it because it gives the management enough bargaining power to deal with the pilots in the interim. Uh, tamana. Uh, you know, in this case, um, I think there's a larger spotlight of scrutiny that has come on. As Ajay rightly pointed out, uh, the head of the roster, the operations head should have been pulled up. They should have been looking into this issue at VAR. Um, you know, I don't know why the HR did not mollify the pilots prior to this, uh, the most important the DGC A has issued A as I understand from press reports, a show cause notice on training practises at var. Now that is, uh, puts a big question mark the moment that comes in and pilots had already pulled back and reported sick. The logical thing for Vista to ensure this does not happen was to cut back on flights. Once you've got the eagle eye of, you know, the ministry, the minister, the DGC A, you know, over your shoulder. Obviously, uh, you can't really, you know, do things that you may your roster may have been doing earlier, like, you know, pulling the pilots to its its you know, rubber bandage. The second thing is which AJ also pointed out and you asked about industry standards. If you can pay an expat 20 lakhs and 80 hours guaranteed, I will tell you that you must pay the Indian pilot his 70 hours. Whichever airline it is and and it is, it is going to become an exodus, not not not just one airline, all because it's going to impact. You. See, if you're ordering 2000 aircraft and you're not paying everybody industry standards, it's going to impact. This is where the role of the regulator and the ministry will come into play because already we know there is a flight and duty time limitation card which was to come in but which has been deferred because a number of people, or or companies asked for it to be deferred. That was regulating fatigue that was also controlling, You know, the flow of pilots. It was controlling their rest periods, their time duty times that has been put on ice. The second thing that comes in is now you are having this huge merger, which is great for, you know, for the corporate because, uh, the merger is the need of the hour Eventually for for to achieve economies of scale, but you don't bring somebody's salaries down. When you're merging them, you protect them and take them into that new environment. It may cause another issue. That's an HR, you know, aspect to be looked at. But I think there's a lot of soul searching that needs to be, you know, done in this and a lot of work to be done to rebuild morale. It's also making me wonder about all the hiccups that they're going to face while consolidating this business. And we should pull back a little and look at this in that perspective as well. A The Tata Group is got, you know, a number of challenges on its hands to revive Air India. They're trying to rebrand it, improve quality, et cetera, And then, at the same time, you are trying to make this business profitable by cutting down minimum flying hours. How are they going to put this all together when you still have one player with a 60% market share domestically? So I think you know, uh, there's this old adage range, uh, penny wise passbook, Which that's what happened in this case. Uh, they were trying to, uh perhaps I don't know who The balance sheet, the profitability impact of the whole, uh, scale of the situation. But, uh, having done mergers and acquisitions in the past, I'm not at this scale. I can tell you there are two approaches. One is everything flows top down. And then, uh, people accept it or move, uh, move out of the system. And the other one is to take everyone along. In this case, what's happened is, uh I think they're trying to be top down approach, uh, where everything is ATT and then to figure out if it works for them or not. Uh, what with with the resource that is that is as constrained as, uh, you know, uh, corporate and cabinet crew and so on. Uh, these are people. These are your front line staff. These are your ambassadors in the air, OK, and on the ground. And all these people need to be taken along. Uh, you can you can do as much, uh, 35,000 ft of blue sky strategy, but it will need to be implemented on the ground, and I think every person in the air India slash this star group should be visible of what their role is in this and, uh, how can they contribute? And how will they benefit out of the situation? That's just a change of approach that I think the group needs to make. Let me take that question to Sanjay the hiccups that they are going to face. And Ajay describes it as penny wise, pound foolish and a bit of a top down approach. Is that going to work with pilots who are right now in great demand in an aviation industry, which is expanding rapidly? I've seen almost four or five mergers during my lifetime in in the airline industry, and, uh, not all of them have been very smooth. In fact, none of them have been smooth. Uh, having said that, um, I do believe that in the larger sense, this merger is critical and essential for the Tata Group for Air India, for Air Asia, Air India Express and Vista. And, uh, I believe, uh, you know, every airline knows all its employees are the core of any operation and merger. But pilots and cabin crew are your front line, and, uh, they are a very, very critical resource. So if we don't handle them well and handle the their integration properly. Uh, it's going to explode and and I I believe that, You know, um, the past week has probably seen, you know, varas sufficiently chastened and, uh, they will climb down and and probably like I keep saying, talk to their pilots, talk to their front line employees and not talk at them. Um, but, uh, you know, it's it's it's going to require careful planning. I. I have seen, you know, a lot of what, uh, Air India has planned with Tata as a planning behind a I and I believe it will be a successful merger, but it will take some time. But we've got to realise one thing that you can't buck the norm if the industry norm is paying. You know, if Qatar can pay a pilot 20 commander 25 lakhs and a first officer 10 to 12 lakhs and you are paying your own expats coming in, foreigners coming in 20 lakhs, You can't expect an Indian kid pilot to take two lakhs and take a one lac hit and say, you know, I'll fly your plane. We've got to we've got to be cognizant of these things. Uh, you know, we are a global market. We're charging global fares. When we fly internationally, I believe we should pay our staff. You know the norm. My question is that how have Air India pilots then accepted 40 hours for so long. At the end of the day, if there is a merger, either the Air India pilots get paid more or the vista ones get paid less. So it you've seen the CPA IPG letter. There's a story to the Air India pilot issue as well. I don't know if you recall a year ago, Goa shut down, so there was a glut of pilots in the market who are willing to take jobs at any price. You know, it was unfortunate that Goa shut down. It impacted flying it impacted fares, just like Vista's cancellations have led to almost a 30 35% increase in fares. Uh, in the last week and going forward in summer. Uh, at that time, there were, you know, 2 300 pilots available for jobs and they jumped at airlines. So the Air India pilots Did you know the two unions did accept it at that time. but I do believe we've not heard the last word on that yet. I think everybody will have to sit at the big round table and have a chat. Otherwise, you like, you know, you rightfully said, you know, there's going to be, uh, realignment of numbers somewhere. Also going to see airfares, go up. Budget. Do you expect that to happen in the month of April? Peak Summer period, Vacation period. Also for, uh, you know, a lot of schools. Uh, do you see, uh, airfare simply going up with at least 10% of the start of airlines or flights off the roster. So I think I was just checking some flights for May, Uh, at this point of time, things look steady. Some very near in flights. You know, the next week or 10 days might have gone up in terms of pricing, but that's, uh, not something that we specifically can, uh, put on this issue. But I think, uh, if you look at, uh, fairs 34 weeks out at this point in time, they look stable. But I'm, uh Then again, I'm only looking at metro routes at this point of time. Uh, some of the routes where there will be just one or two services. Like to, uh, you know, Jar and Kashmir lay and so on these tools routes might be more spikes than the one that are there for me, right? So, you know, we'll see what happens to airfares. We'll see what happens to the negotiations and be sure that negotiations will definitely be on between two sides. This is not the end of it, as Sanjay Lazar has also said, but for now. Thank you, Sanjay. Thank you. We'll keep tracking the story right here on ND TV profit. We've been breaking all the twists and turns on it we've requested, and we urge the var of management to come and speak with us. We want to understand What's this? What has been happening? Because at the end of the day, there are some very, very basic questions. Was this simply a high handed attitude? Was this mismanagement because this could have been avoided if you were talking to pilots, isn't it? If not, then what really is the reason the second really big question were they being over rostered? Now, this is something that has been said. We've been reporting, but we also need clarity on it. Were some pilots being over roster because then that can be a real issue and concern. Is it fair to cut guaranteed hours from 70 to 40 because there is a merger? Is there any other way out? Especially if the market leader is offering 70 hours of guaranteed flying? Were the pilots' concerns then taken into account when this decision was made? And can you get away with not doing that, especially looking at the task on hand for the Tatars who want to consolidate their airline business? We will be on top of the story. But thank you so much for joining us on this special show. We'll take a very short break, but stay tuned a lot more on the other side on TV.
