I am sure we have all gotten done everything which we had been putting off for a lazy day by now in this lockdown. For me, while I’ve finally taken to cooking, I’ve still been putting off writing up a summary of what I’ve been up to during the lockdown.

One of the initiatives we took during our time on the ground was to connect LFAL readers with some of the best brains in the travel industry. Some of the conversations so far have been with industry leaders, aviation lawyers, pilots and crisis management teams.

For the next talk, we are happy to invite you to chat with some of the people across TATA SIA Airlines, the people behind one of my preferred airlines, Vistara.

On Saturday, May 30, 2020, we will have the team from Vistara join us, sharing their insights from their extended time on the ground, and their experience taking the airline back up in the air earlier this week. Here is the team, and why it should be of interest to you to tune-in:

• Vinod Kannan, who is the Chief Commercial Officer for Vistara, and before that at Scoot. Vinod has also spent about two decades at Singapore Airlines across functions, which gives him a very good insight into the aviation business on an overall basis. At Vistara, Vinod oversees a wide portfolio of strategic and commercial functions, including pricing and revenue management, network planning, sales & distribution, partnerships & alliances, product development, in-flight services, marketing, branding and customer experience.
• Deepa Chaddha, Sr. Vice President of HR and Corporate Affairs for Vistara. She brings with her 20 years of leadership experience working across different dimensions of the people function in Telecom, Software, KPO, Pharma, e-commerce and airline industries. She, along with her team, have been responsible for a lot of initiatives that have kept the tempo up at the airline over the past couple of months.
• Sisira Kanta Dash, Sr. Vice President of Engineering for Vistara. Dash, as he is popularly known, is the man behind the machinery of Vistara. A320 or 737 (or both now!), any sort of aircraft selection and upkeep of these aircraft are a part of the functions he oversees at Vistara.
• Capt. Bosco Xavier, Chief Pilot and VP – Flight Operations for Vistara, is an old hand at the Boeing 787 and on a day to day basis manages the operation of the fleet with respect to pilot performance. A couple of years ago, Capt. Bosco helped with the induction of the Boeing 787-10 for Singapore Airlines and was also one of the pilots bringing back the plane from South Carolina to Singapore, via Japan.
• Samrat Chakravorty, Chief Security Officer for Vistara, is the man to go to for keeping anything secure at Vistara, including the planes. His team keep the planes and the people on the planes safe.
• Somya Zutshi, IFS and Line Check Crew for Vistara, is one of the friendly faces in the sky. When not flying, Somya is helping other members of the cabin crew groom for the job, to make sure they are all ready to join the team and deliver Vistara’s much-recognised service up in the air.

The intention is to have a conversation with people that make the airline, hearing about their stories in aviation, their highs and their lows and get a bit of colour on the current situation that we are all staring into. I can’t promise a crystal ball, but it should be an exciting conversation nevertheless. If you’d like to attend this conversation or just listen in from the comfort of your home, RSVP here and we will send you the details about how to connect.

RSVP Now

After the chat, we will also be hosting a recording on our YouTube channel, so if you haven’t subscribed to our channel, do so now.