Vistara to soon boast of all-modern fleet, second Indian airline to achieve the feat

Vistara inducted Jet’s B737 aircraft and soon had a peak fleet size of nine. Owing to operational challenges, the airline gradually let these planes go. Two of the nine B737s are with Air India Express, while two are stored. One each is operating in Australia, Russia, Spain and the USA. Where the last aircraft is headed, remains to be seen.

Come July 27, Vistara will stop operating the last of its B737 planes. In a few weeks, the aircraft will also leave Vistara’s fleet. Incidentally, this aircraft was the first one acquired by Vistara in June 2019.

With this, Vistara becomes only the second Indian airline, after Akasa Air to have an all next generation fleet.

The airline, a JV of the Tata group with SIA, launched services in January 2015 with an Airbus fleet. It later added other aircraft including the Airbus narrowbody and the Boeing widebody aircraft in 2018. Vistara is slated to merge with Air India next year.

The surprise element of the fleet has been the B737NG, the first of which entered the fleet in June 2019, given that its out-of-production date was already known by then.

The story of B737s with Vistara

A couple of days before Jet Airways shut down in April 2019, Vistara rejigged its network, adding flights between Bengaluru and Mumbai to fill the void left by Jet Airways. Given its limited fleet, the airline had withdrawn flights from Chennai and Kolkata to accommodate the new flights. Other airlines followed suit and that led to a huge hue and cry, with airports and passengers complaining about the withdrawal of routes.

Subsequently, the Jet Airways slots were given out to airlines subject to additional capacity being inducted. While IndiGo had a steady stream of A320 neo family aircraft coming in, Vistara and SpiceJet chose another route, that of inducting aircraft available with Jet Airways into their fleet. The crew and staff of Jet Airways was trained and readily available and this helped Vistara and SpiceJet create jobs and expand operations while also using the leased planes that would otherwise have just been sitting idle.

Vistara inducted Jet’s B737 aircraft and soon had a peak fleet size of nine. Owing to operational challenges, the airline gradually let these planes go. Two of the nine B737s are with Air India Express, while two are stored. One each is operating in Australia, Russia, Spain and the USA. Where the last aircraft is headed, remains to be seen.

What next?

As the last B737 moves out, Vistara has temporarily reduced frequencies on the routes where the B737s were deployed but will be replaced by the A320neos in the near future. The deinduction was timed with the retraining of the crew to ensure seamless transfer.The operational challenges

Vistara had done extensive research before deciding on the LOPA (Layout of Passenger Amenities) for its plane. However, the B737s had a two-class configuration, forcing Vistara to give up its famed three-class configuration, adding economy class seats and reducing both the Business and Premium economy sections in the planes.

This meant that the airline had multiple sub-fleets within its fleet of 50 planes, leading to fleet complexities. Not only were the seats different from those of standard Vistara Airbus aircraft, but it also led to issues with usage of upgrade vouchers since the airline had to change the rules for upgrading from economy to business.

The deployment of the B737s led to confusion for passengers, with some flights on a sector offering three classes, and others on the same sector offering two classes. The confusion only grew when Vistara also inducted mono class (all economy) aircraft in its fleet.

Vistara’s nine B737s and where they are now

Source: DGCA, PlaneSpotters.net

Tail Note

Interestingly, two of the B737s which were with Vistara are now operating for Air India Express - a subsidiary of Air India. This helped Air India Express add the much needed capacity.

As the last B737 leaves its fleet, Vistara will have all next generation aircraft in its fleet and becomes just the second airline in the country after Akasa Air to have such a record. Go FIRST, though grounded right now, has 5 A320ceo and IndiGo has 20 A320ceo in its fleet. The newer fleet not only helps with savings but also helps with lower carbon emissions.

As Vistara merges with Air India, its modern and young fleet will significantly help lower the average age of aircraft in the merged entity. Until that happens, Vistara will itself see simplification of fleet, reduction in average age and better standardisation.