Air India strives to revive its fortunes with Tata money

(Reuters) – Air India is carving out an ambitious renaissance under the Tata Group conglomerate, which regained control last year after the airline was nationalised nearly seven decades ago.

The airline on Tuesday placed landmark orders for 470 jetliners from both Airbus and Boeing as it looks to take on domestic rivals such as IndiGo and international competitors including Emirates.

Tata in November announced the merger of Air India with Vistara, a joint venture with Singapore Airlines, to cement Air India as India’s largest international carrier and second largest in the domestic market after IndiGo.

Here is Air India’s timeline, which includes financial troubles, a drop in reputation and Tata’s plans to restore it.

Year Event

1932 Entrepreneur J.R.D Tata, the first Indian to

receive a commercial pilot’s license, forms the

airline, India’s first.

1946 Tata Airlines is converted into a public entity and

renamed Air-India. The Maharajah mascot also makes

his first appearance.

1953 Air India is nationalised and splits into a

domestic airline and an international carrier.

April 2005 Air India launches low-cost carrier Air India

Express

April National carriers Air India and Indian Airlines are

2007* merged into a single airline

July 2009 The airline appoints State Bank of India to prepare

a roadmap for recovery after years of losses under

state control and emergence of new players

April 2012 India approves a $5.8 billion bailout for Air

India, which was to be received by 2020

March 2018 India plans to sell a controlling stake, along with

roughly $5.1 billion of the carrier’s debt

June 2018 India shelves a plan to sell a 76% stake due to

lack of interest from bidders

December India decides to sell 100% of its stake after

2019 failing to find takers for its offer of 76% and

full debt

October The government gets two bids after extending the

2020 deadline several times

September India’s finance ministry says Air India has

2021 received financial bids from Tata Sons and Ajay

Singh, promoter of budget airline SpiceJet

October India’s government announces Tata Sons as the

2021 winning bidder for its 100% stake in Air India,

after the conglomerate bid 180 billion Indian

rupees ($2.18 billion)

January Tata regains control of Air India

2022

April 2022 Air India proposes to buy the entire equity share

capital of low cost carrier AirAsia India, which

Tata has a majority stake in and operates with

Malaysia’s AirAsia X Bhd

May 2022 Tata announces appointment of Campbell Wilson, the

head of Singapore Airlines’ budget carrier Scoot,

as Air India’s CEO, weeks after appointing N.

Chandrasekaran as chairman.

October Singapore Airlines says it is in talks with Tata

2022 about a potential merger of Vistara, their joint

venture airline, with Air India

November AirAsia sells its stake in AirAsia India to Air

2022 India

November Tata says it is merging Air India with Vistara, its

2022 joint venture with Singapore Airlines, with Tata

holding 74.9% of the combined entity and the latter

owning the rest

February Tata places a landmark order for 470 Airbus and

2023 Boeing planes

*sourced from Britannica

(Reporting by Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai and Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Jamie Freed and Mark Potter)

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