Our Ability To Quickly Adapt To Change Has Rewarded US In Many Ways

Aviation Update Editor Mr. Kartikeya in conversation with Mr. Vinod Kannan, Chief Commercial Officer discussed about the impact of COVID-19 on the Indian aviation industry and Vistara.

- Kartikeya

What were the measures taken by Vistara to fight the COVID-19 situation? How hard was the blow of the pandemic for the airline?

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected the aviation industry across the world and the scenario in India is not any different. With temporary suspension of operations during the nationwide lockdown there was along period of no revenues that led to depleting cash reserves, while some of the significant expenses/fixed costs continued which has resulted in a severe financial impact.

To deal with the situation we have been pursuing several measures to reduce noncustomer facing operating expenditures and making every effort to conserve cash wherever possible. This includes renegotiating various contracts with partners, vendors and lessors. We also had to make the difficult decision of temporarily reducing some of our staff cost. During the lockdown when commercial operations were put on pause, we quickly beefed up our cargo operations to generate some revenue. In fact, we deployed our brand-new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, in addition to our narrow-body aircraft, for cargo operations as well.