Flights to B’luru cancelled, Delhi & Mumbai delayed
Times of India | 3 April 2024
Kolkata: One Vistara flight departing from Kolkata to Bengaluru was cancelled on Tuesday and multiple flights to Delhi, Mumbai and Port Blair were delayed by several hours as the airline reeled under non availability of pilots.
Sources said, 38 flights originating from key cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru were cancelled. The airline had 13 departures from the city out of which one was cancelled, officials said.
This comes after more than 50 flights of Vistara – co-owned by the Tata group and Singapore Airlines Limited – were cancelled on Monday and about 160 delayed with passengers complaining of poor communication and hours-long wait at the airport as they slammed the airline for harassing passengers.
“My uncle’s morning flight to Kolkata from Mumbai was delayed by more than three hours as several passengers waited at the airport without any clarity. While my uncle’s flight flew out of Mumbai around 9.45 am and reached the city in the afternoon, one of his friends travelling to Goa in another Vistara flight flew out after more than four hours,” said Nandini Roy, a resident of Jadavpur.
Civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has sought a detailed report from Vistara regarding flight cancellations and major delays. He has also asked the airline the steps they are taking to deal with the inconvenience caused to passengers. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has asked Vistara to submit daily details on flight delays and cancellations.
Several pilots at Vistara aren’t reporting for duty in protest against the new compensation package formulated ahead of its merger with the Tata group-owned Air India.
Vistara on Monday said they faced a significant number of cancellations and delays in past few days due to various reasons, including crew unavailability. The airline had also added that they were deploying larger aircraft on select domestic routes to combine flights.