👋🏻 Keep Calm & Hasta La Vistara

Hello there,

We’ve been through some turbulent days, don’t you agree?

First, the Iranian attacks on Israel caused fearful times for people living in Israel - and also disrupted air travel.

Then, the shocking floods in Dubai in the past few days.

Have you seen those images from Dubai?

Like this one:

Or this video where the airport tarmac looks like a massive lake.

This is crazy.

And we thought one week this year might be boring. Not lately.

But besides those chaotic events in the Middle East, there are also some exciting stories in the global aviation & travel tech world. You will see it below.

Before that, welcome to all of you, new readers! Don’t forget that you can get some cool free stuff if you get at least 5 new subscribers. Details below.

But now, let’s kick off this week’s edition. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this piece.

This week, you can read about:
🇮🇳 The Air India-Vistara merger is in chaos
💸 Vinci Airports just acquired another airport
👧🏼 Etihad learned how brutal children’s feedback could be

It’s only a 7-min read.

Before we dive in, subscribe to get a piece of The Departure Times in your inbox every week.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORY
The Air India-Vistara merger is in chaos amid pilot discontentment

The merger of Air India and Vistara has been in progress since November 2022 when Singapore Airlines, which has 49% stakes in Vistara, and Tata Group, the majority shareholder of Vistara and the sole owner of Air India, announced it after months of rumors and speculations.

Since Tata Group has significant ownership in both Indian full-service carriers, the merger makes sense.

However, it hasn’t been an easy road so far. Which merger is an easy one, anyway?!

But recently, Vistara’s management has been under massive pressure due to a large number of flight cancellations and delays taking place in the last weeks.

According to reports, over 150 cancellations and 200 delays over two hours occurred between March 31 and April 4. These flight disruptions affect around 1,000 flights for the whole month.

So what happened?

The short answer is: “crew unavailability”. 

The long answer is that Vistara’s flight crews are discontent with the recent developments at the airline ahead of the merger. Therefore, many pilots joined forces and took collective sick leaves to protest against Vistara’s management.

Their dissatisfaction is based on these factors:

• 💰 Pay structure adjustment: Air India and Vistara had to adjust their pay structure ahead of the merger and Vistara pilots are the victims of it. Guaranteed flight hours are now reduced from 70 to 40 hours a month for First Officers. This results in a pay cut between $960-$1,680, according to Skift’s report.

• 🌪️ Chaotic and unpredictable rostering and short-notice changes: The airline did not properly scale up its crew to follow the network expansion, therefore, pilots were suffering from a high number of working hours, stressful flight combinations and even regular duty calls on their offs. According to The Hindu, this chaos caused pilots a lifestyle instability, as they had to spend nights out of their home bases and only return home on their weekly off.

• 🧑🏽‍✈️ Delays & uncertain career advancement: Vistara’s flight crews are also complaining about delayed training programs for promotions to Captains as well as delayed training for new aircraft. There’s also a flagged uncertainty on how the merger may impact Vistara pilots’ seniority and further career advancement.

How does Vistara’s management respond to this chaos?

Their response is something like this.

Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan responded to employees last weekend to reassure them and calm all nerves. Kannan said that all airline employees will have clarity and details on their post-merger roles by May and June. If regulatory approvals are received.

In Kannan’s internal communication, he emphasized that the integration of Vistara’s non-crew staff in the newly merged entity should be completed by the end of April.

Regarding the flight crews, Vistara CEO added that additional town hall sessions for pilots will be held early next week to discuss career progression and address concerns on the new contract terms.

For cabin crews, Kannan did not announce any concrete changes yet, he only said that they are “evaluating this and will be communicating with further details.”

Okay, so does it solve this chaos for now? Or does it at least calm the nerves and discontentment?

Not sure yet.

Let’s see what the upcoming weeks will bring.

NEWS BRIEFS
DerbySoft Acquires PKFare, the Chinese B2B Travel Marketplace

DerbySoft, the Dallas-based travel tech company announced on Tuesday that it acquired PKFare, a B2B travel marketplace based in China.

The terms of the transaction remained undisclosed. 

With this takeover, DerbySoft gets access to PKFare’s massive inventory of 600 airlines and 650,000 hotels in 100 countries - including a strong air content in China.

Their business mix is 60% North America, Europe, and the Middle East, while 40% comes from Asia Pacific. (Although, we can rightfully assume that 40% is mainly China, as co-founder Jason Sui claimed in an October 2023 interview)

The Shenzhen-based travel marketplace suffered massively during the COVID crisis - as most travel tech firms - as they had to cut their staff from 300 to 120. According to that October 2023 interview by Sui, they are back at around 220.

Source: DerbySoft

Vinci Airport Acquires Majority Shares in Edinburgh Airport

The French airport developer & operator announced that it’s taking over 50.01% of Edinburgh Airport’s shares in the value of £1.27 billion ($1.58 billion). The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed by the Summer of 2024.

The remaining 49.99% will be managed by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which has owned the airport since 2012.

This is the third airport acquisition for Vinci in the UK after owning 100% of Belfast Airport and 50.01% of Gatwick Airport.

We can expect that Vinci Airports may announce more transactions in the upcoming month, including the takeover of Budapest Airport’s minority shares.

Source: Vinci Airports

BARK Air, The First Dog-centric Premium Airline Takes Off (yes, this is no joke)

If you are a proud dog owner in the upper class who hates that their dogs have to travel in an aircraft’s cargo area, then you will love this news.

A public charter operator, named BARK Air, announced the launch of its services on various routes from Westchester County Airport near NYC. These routes include Los Angeles and London Stansted Airport.

The dog-centric airline is part of Bark, a company specializing in various dog products, including a monthly themed box of toys and treats, as well as dental kits and dog food.

With the launch of BARK Air, they want to create the first air travel experience designed specifically for dogs, so that they can travel in exceptional comfort with their owners.

BARK even posted a video with their CEO Matt Meeker, as he flew 3 hours in a dog crate to experience the discomfort dogs may have to go through as they travel in an aircraft cargo hold. Quite a funny video, watch it here.

So it sounds pretty nice but how much does it cost for you to fly your dog from NYC to London?

$8,000. One way.

Whoof.

Yepp, it is pricey but you have to pay for the luxury environment of flying with your dog on a Gulfstream V (or similar) aircraft operated by Talon Air.

Your dog will be happy, your wallet won’t be that much. Or even your frequent flyer membership as, of course, you won’t be able to collect miles if you are taking your dog for some fancy British dog food.

Source: Businesswire

FAVORITE READS
My weekly “inflight food” for thought

🇸🇬 OAG published an insightful story on how the "Taylor Swift effect” impacted Singapore’s air travel around the days of Swift’s concerts in the country.

✈️ We all know the turbulence Boeing is going through. It’s so massive some planes may even get damaged in that turbulence. (Ouch, sorry for this painfully bad joke…). John Oliver covered Boeing’s saga quite well on his show. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out.

🇮🇳 Since this week’s briefing covered the Air India-Vistara chaos, I want to recommend The Air Show’s podcast episode on the Indian aviation market. Super insightful!

BUZZWORTHY SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT OF THE WEEK
Etihad receives brutal feedback from a 6-year-old…then makes it up with loads of chocolate

Mark Ross-Smith, the CEO of Loyalty Status, shared a cute & insightful little story on how his 6-year-old daughter filled out Etihad’s post-flight online feedback form.

And her feedback was brutal.

While she had some valid complaints, they were mainly influenced by the fact that she got chocolates from Emirates but not from Etihad.

The story wasn’t over with this. See below.

So after this interaction with Etihad, Mark and her daughter’s next flight was bombarded with chocolates, given out by Etihad staff at multiple parts of their journey (check-in, lounge, gate, and inflight).

And thus Etihad became the Chocolate Airlines.

Cute story, great marketing. And hopefully, delicious chocolates.

Dear Etihad, I have no kids but if you give me a free seat in The Apartment and some chocolate, you will get social media exposure like never before.

I promise.

Do you enjoy reading this newsletter? 

If so, please share it with others so they also get a piece of The Departure Times every week.

Thanks for being here.

See you next week!