As Vistara focuses on growing capacity utilisation, expanding fleet, and improving overall services, the full-service carrier plans to dramatically increase its workforce size to a total of 5,000 people by the end of this year. The airline currently employs roughly 4,000 people.
The airline industry is seeing a surge in traffic figures after being severely hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, especially the third wave, which heavily impacted air traffic that was on the mend late last year.
In light of this, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan confessed last week that the airline has fallen short of consumers’ expectations and pledged those actions are being taken to close the “gaps on a war footing.”
“We wanted to make sure that we explain our side of the story... In February, what we have seen is that demand has come back and people have started to travel, and I think with cases going down, this, touch wood, will be the trend for the future,” Vistara CEO told PTI in an interview.
While stating that the airline is pursuing a multi-pronged strategy, Kannan noted that the carrier currently runs more flights than it did prior to COVID. “We have about 220 to 250 departures a day. Since we have hit that momentum, we will continue to grow and make sure that our commitments remain as we scale up. It also involves engaging our staff, partners,” he said.
Vistara Plans for a Fleet Expansion by 2023
After considering that Vistara will return some aircraft to lessors, the airline aims to have 70 aircraft by the end of 2023, up from 50 fleet size. “There is a requirement since we are utilising the aircraft better. In the last two years, even though the fleet count increased, aircraft utilisation was lower, so there was no need to scale up. That process has now commenced and is in full swing,” the Vistara CEO commented about expanding its fleet size.
Vistara is a joint venture between Tatas Sons and Singapore Airlines. The airline carried 4.79 lakh domestic passengers in January 2022 and had a market share of 7.5%, according to the DGCA report.
