Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines invested Rs 9,558 crore in loss-making Air India in 2024-25, with the promoters pumping in Rs 4,306 crore alone in March this year.
Vistara will be merged with Air India on Monday night, and from Tuesday onward, the Vistara flight code will change from 'UK' to 'AI2XXX'.
Singapore Airlines will make an additional investment of Rs 3,194.5 crore in Tata Group-owned Air India post-merger of Vistara in November. The merger, announced on November 29, 2022, and set to be completed on November 11, 2024, will result in Singapore Airlines having a 25.1 per cent stake in the enlarged Air India. Full-service carrier Vistara, which started flying on January 9, 2015, is a joint venture between Tatas and Singapore Airlines, where the latter holds a 49 per cent shareholding.
Facing disruptions due to non-availability of crew, Vistara on Sunday announced reducing 10 per cent of its capacity or 25-30 flights daily and most of the cancellations are in the domestic network as the Tata Group airline strives to stabilise operations. The full-service carrier is to operate over 300 flights daily in the ongoing summer schedule and witnessed significant disruptions earlier this week as many pilots reported sick, resulting in cancellations of flights. "We are carefully scaling back our operations by around 25-30 flights per day, i.e. roughly 10 per cent of the capacity we were operating.
Air India on Friday said it has completed the acquisition of its first A350-900 aircraft by way of a finance lease transaction with HSBC through the GIFT City. This is also the first wide body aircraft to be leased through the GIFT City, the country's first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). In a release, the airline said the transaction was facilitated by its wholly-owned subsidiary AI Fleet Services Ltd (AIFS) and is also the first financing transaction from the orders for 470 aircraft that were made earlier this year.
When the Tatas re-boarded Air India on January 27 last year, the price of aviation turbine fuel was at over Rs 80,000 per kilolitre. Rupee was trading at around Rs 74 to a US dollar. The Omicron variant of Covid-19 was in prevalence - barely a week earlier, India had reported over 340,000 cases on a single day. Seven-day home quarantine of international travellers was the norm.
Currently, Vistara has more than 22 planes and operates around 850 flights every week.
The airline would offer access to in-flight connectivity only on Dreamliners and Airbus 321 aircraft on international routes.
As per information available with the Corporate Affairs Ministry, the new company was incorporated on November 5 with a total paid up capital of Rs 500,000 and has been registered in New Delhi.
In their new venture, Tata SIA Airlines Ltd, Tata Sons would hold 51 per cent stake and Singapore Airlines 49 per cent.
By 2023, Vistara's hangars will house a total of 70 aircraft, up from the current 42.
This is the largest single dose of equity infusion into the joint venture since its launch in January 2015.
Tatas and Singapore Airlines have assured the government that control of their proposed airline venture would always remain in Indian hands, while seeking approval to offer passenger services on both domestic and international routes.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw posted the matter for hearing on Friday.
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The proposal of Tatas and Singapore Airlines for a new joint venture, entailing foreign investment of $49 million, is likely to come up before the Foreign Investment Promotion Board for approval on October 18.
In 2010, Ratan Tata had spoken of how he had to abandon plans to launch an airline because he refused to pay bribes to secure the necessary approvals.
Making a strong case for approval of their proposed airline JV, Tatas and Singapore Airlines have said that the venture would create significant job opportunities in India and would boost the country's image as an international investment destination.
'It will be like this: If you use the window seat in the first row, next will be the aisle in the second row, to maintain social distancing.' 'So, two-thirds of the aircraft is not going to be used.'
'There are smaller cities, which are very attractive to fly'.
In the previous decade, the government, with Praful Patel as the civil aviation minister, saw the introduction of an irrational 5/20 policy.
Scholarships, sports and spirit define Phee Teik Yeoh, the new CEO of Vistara in India
Enormous debt isn't the only thing afflicting Air India. Its work culture is an equal culprit in its downfall.
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