Mumbai:

A 51-year-old passenger was arrested for smoking in the lavatory of a flight during his journey from Muscat to Mumbai, an official said today.

The incident occurred on board Vistara’s UK234 flight, which took off from Muscat for the Maharashtra capital at 11.56 pm on Monday, he said.

The passenger, Balakrishna Rajayan, who was on board the flight, went to the lavatory at the rear side of the aircraft and smoked a cigarette, the official said.

Rajayan hails from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, he said.

The incident came to light when the pilot of the aircraft noticed it with the help of a smoke detector, he added.

The pilot informed the crew members about it, following which they checked the lavatory and found a cigarette bud in the wash basin, the official said.

After the flight landed at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai on Tuesday morning, the crew members informed the security supervisor on the ground about the unruly behaviour of the passenger, he said.

The security officials then took the passenger to their office and enquired about his act. He admitted that he had smoked inside the lavatory, he said, adding that Rajayan also produced a matchbox used for lighting the cigarette.

He was later taken to the Sahar police station in the city, where a complaint was filed against him by the security supervisor.

As per the complaint, Rajayan had deliberately violated the safety-related rules by smoking inside the plane, putting all the travellers of the flight at risk.

A case was registered against the passenger under section 336 (act of endangering life or personal safety of others) of Indian Penal Code and section 25 of the Aircraft Rules, he said.

Probe into the case is underway, he added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

File picture of Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan
| Photo Credit: KAMAL NARANG

After facing significant flight disruptions recently, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan on Thursday told the airline staff that the “worst is behind us” and operations have already stabilised.

Pilot woes have forced the Tata Group airline to temporarily cut down capacity by 10% or 25-30 flights daily.

While acknowledging that things should have been planned better, Mr. Kannan said it has been a “learning experience”.

He also said it has been a challenging start to the new financial year and the airline faced significant operational disruption from March 31 to April 2.

“The anxiety and frustration felt by our customers was matched in even measure to the pain that all of us felt in seeing our much-loved brand drawing negative commentary from various quarters… I assure you that the worst is behind us, and we have already stabilised our operations, with our on-time performance (OTP) increasing to 89 per cent on 9 April 2024 (second highest among all Indian airlines),” he said in a message to the staff.

The full-service carrier has around 6,500 people, including about 1,000 pilots.

In the wake of the disruptions, the top management of the airline had held a virtual meeting with the pilots. One of the reasons for the disruptions was also that some section of pilots reporting sick to protest against the new contract that will result in pay revision.

According to Mr. Kannan, there were a multitude of reasons for the disruptions, including ATC delays, bird hits, and maintenance activities early last month.

“We were stretched in our pilot rosters and there was not enough resilience to withstand injects that we would otherwise have weathered. We could and should have planned better, and this has been a learning experience for us which we will review thoroughly,” the Vistara chief said.

Most of the cancellations were in the domestic network and the carrier is working on plans for May and beyond.

“While the events of the last week may seem like a setback, the hallmark of our organisation has always been that we have bounced back from tough situations ‘ and emerged stronger.

“… I trust each of you to continue to put in all efforts to ensure that we do not let our brand, and our customer, down,” Mr. Kannan said.

As we emerge from this difficult phase, he said it is this commitment to being a customer-oriented airline that will help it bounce back stronger.

The airline has also reached out to customers impacted by the cancellations and delays over the affected period.

“We have provided the necessary compensation as per the regulatory mandate, and have also offered additional service recovery vouchers for passengers whose flights were significantly delayed,” the Vistara chief said.

The carrier has 70 aircraft in its fleet and is to operate more than 300 flights daily in the ongoing summer schedule.

“Dealing with disappointed customers is never easy but amidst all the chaos, we have received feedback on how some of you went beyond the call of duty to assist our customers to the extent possible,” Mr. Kannan said and expressed gratitude to the pilots for cooperating and stepping up to support operations.

By the end of December 2023, Mumbai would have an equal number of domestic departures as Delhi which currently has 78 daily domestic departures. File

Notwithstanding the uncertainty over the brand name continuing after its merger with Air India by April 2024, Vistara, the joint venture of Tata Sons & Singapore Airlines (SIA), continues to scale up its operations, mostly from Mumbai. 

The airline’s CEO said more international flights would be operated from Mumbai, which has become Vistara’s sizeable hub, in the coming months as more aircraft join the fleet.

“Mumbai will remain a focus of growth because we have added so much domestic capacity to help grow our international connections,” said CEO Vinod Kannan. “Today, we operate 12 international flights from Mumbai as compared with 7 from Delhi and more international flights will be added from Mumbai in the coming months,” he added.

He said Vistara, which currently has 54 daily domestic departures from Mumbai, will increase the number of departures to 67 from August. By the end of December 2023, Mumbai would have an equal number of domestic departures as Delhi which currently has 78 daily domestic departures. 

Vistara will add 10 more aircraft including three Boeing 787s by March 2024 to take the fleet size to 70 by the time of merger. And most of these aircraft will be deployed in the international sector including Europe, Mr. Kannan said.

Stating that a consultant had been onboarded for the branding part of the combined entity, and no decision had been taken on the future of brand Vistara, he said, “We continue to do what we do best. We will continue to add destinations, aircraft and celebrate the wins.”

“We have not paused or taken a breather. Ultimately, we have to come up to certain level where the combined entity can together move to the next level,”

He said the airline was on track for the merger and various approvals were being received. He said out of the four airlines of the Tata Group, only two Air Operator Certificates (AOC) would be retained, one for the full-service carrier and the other for the low-cost carrier. 

“Whether there would be a sub-brand or there will be a merger of the brands and whether there will be one brand, these are still being discussed,” he said.

“But in the aviation context there are not so many examples of people running sub brands successfully and doing well. So, as much as we love our brand, these things are important,” he added.