(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)
