Though the airline has kept a reserve price of Rs 315 crore for these properties, it hopes to make around Rs 500 crore from the sale.
Air India chief Campbell Wilson on Friday said that a majority of pilots have accepted the new compensation package offered last week, amid protests by Air India pilots' unions against the revised salary structure and service conditions. The loss-making airline, which was taken over from the government by the Tata Group in January 2022, has announced a new compensation package for pilots and cabin crew. In his weekly message to Air India staff on Friday, Campbell said the airline is making investments in workplace technology and training as well as in new and improved employee benefits.
The government has initiated the process for inviting financial bids for the sale of national carrier Air India and the deal is likely to conclude by September, sources said. Salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group was among the "multiple" entities that had put in preliminary bids for buying loss-making Air India in December last year. The sources said that after analysing the preliminary bids, eligible bidders were given access to the Virtual Data Room (VDR) of Air India, following which investors' queries were answered.
Flight AI173 from Delhi was diverted to Magadan in Russia on Tuesday owing to an engine glitch, the Tata Group-owned private carrier said in a statement.
The government on Monday issued a letter of intent (LoI) confirming the sale of its 100 per cent stake in loss-making Air India to Tata Group for Rs 18,000 crore, a senior official said. Last week, the government had accepted an offer by Talace Pvt Ltd, a unit of the holding company of salt-to-software conglomerate, to pay Rs 2,700 crore in cash and takeover Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt. Subsequent to that, an LoI has now been issued to Tata confirming the government's willingness to sell its 100 per cent stake in the airline.
The flight from Dubai with 190 people, including a six-member crew, overshot the tabletop runway during landing at the Kozhikode airport in heavy rain on Friday, killing 18 people, including both the pilots.
Airlines experienced check-in problems at various airports due to a software issue that lasted over 40 minutes, impacting IndiGo, Air India Express, SpiceJet, and Akasa Air.
National carrier Air India's strategy to cut full-service flights and replace them with low-cost services by Air India Express on its West Asian routes has backfired. The passenger load factor of the flag carrier's low-cost subsidiary for West Asia has fallen a steep 11 percentage points over the last six months as a result of competition from new low-cost entrants and fare wars by incumbents. The PLF on the Dubai-India route fell from 83 to 78 per cent in the same period.
Tata Sons has started the process of due diligence of state-owned Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express. Sources said the group has appointed Bain and Company and Seabury Group for this purpose. Once complete, a financial bid will be submitted and a deal to take over the airline is likely to fructify by end of this year or even earlier, people involved in the process said. Simultaneously, the group has brought in veterans in the aviation business from Delta and United Airlines to prepare a plan for post-merger integration of Air India with its existing airline ventures. Tata Sons operates Vistara - a 51:49 percent joint venture with Singapore Airlines and Air Asia India, in which Tatas hold 83.67 per cent stakes.
Events from mid-2025 to early 2026 exposed deeper systemic concerns for India's aviation safety architecture.
Government officials say a shareholding structure has been mandated to discourage non-serious bidders from accessing Air India's data room
The home ministry has given security clearance to Air India CEO-designate Campbell Wilson, paving the way for him to take charge of the airline, according to a senior official. The appointment of Wilson as the chief executive officer and managing director of Air India was announced by Tata Sons on May 12. Tata Sons took over the loss-making carrier on January 27.
Virtually addressing employees of Air India across the globe, he said for the airline to be the best again there will be an organisational redesign, and it will "require a huge transformation, probably the largest transformation and the change all of you would ever go through". The carrier will expand its "outreach both domestically and internationally" and it has the desire to connect India with every part of the globe, he added.
Tata Sons has emerged as the top bidder for the takeover of debt-laden State-run airline Air India but the bid is yet to be approved by a group of ministers headed by Home Minister Amit Shah, sources said.
The Indian National Congress has strongly condemned the air strike by Pakistan that hit a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, resulting in a high number of casualties. The party calls for global rejection of such acts of barbarism and expresses solidarity with the Afghan people.
US President Donald Trump on Friday said that the 'ceasefire' that he got done between India and Pakistan was a favour to their army chief Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Air India owns 32 aircraft, and has 37 aircraft on finance lease; Air India Express owns 17 aircraft on finance lease. The aircraft-related debt of Air India is Rs 16,000 crore; it's Rs 1,100 crore for Air India Express.
'This personal incident has no connection whatsoever with his employer or professional duties. Attempts to associate the company's name are unwarranted and appear aimed solely at gaining social media attention on an otherwise settled personal issue'
The EoI and the share purchase agreement would be issued in January itself for the bidders. While Air India's net loss in 2018-19 was around Rs 8,556 crore, its current total debt is around Rs 80,000 crore.
Skye Air Mobility has raised USD 9 million in a Series B funding round to expand its hyperlocal drone delivery services across key metropolitan markets in India.
The new owners of Air India will have to retain all the employees of the national carrier for at least one year post which they can offer a VRS. The gratuity, pension fund and post retirement medical benefits of existing and past employees too would be honoured by the new owner, civil aviation secretary Rajiv Bansal said. Tata Sons has emerged as the winning bidder for Air India with the government accepting its Rs 18,000 crore offer to acquire 100 per cent of the debt-laden state-run carrier.
The bench, which wanted the Civil Aviation Ministry to think over the various issues plaguing the national carrier, also said other area of concern was the priority given to private airlines with Air India aircraft being asked to hover around during the peak landing hours causing huge loss of money on fuel.
The Delhi high court on Thursday dismissed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's plea seeking to set aside the Air India divestment process on the allegation that the methodology adopted by the government in the valuation of the national carrier was "arbitrary, illegal and against public interest". The order was passed by a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh. The court said a detailed order will be uploaded. "Dr. Subramanian Swamy, sir we are dismissing this matter...," the bench said.
A consortium of lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) has agreed to provide loans to Tata Group for the smooth operations of loss-making Air India. Tata Group, which won the bid to acquire the national carrier along with Air India Express and 50 per cent stake in AISATS in October last year, is expected to formally takeover the airline on Thursday. Sources said the SBI-led consortium has agreed to grant both term loans and working capital loans depending on the airline's requirements. All large lenders, including Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, and Union Bank of India, are part of the consortium, they added.
In a bid to resurrect Air India privatisation, the government is planning to give flexibility to potential investors to decide on the humongous debt with the national carrier, a top official has said. The flexibility to potential investors on the quantum of the Rs 60,074 crore debt that they want to absorb will replace the current condition of the buyer taking over more than a third of the debt and transferring the rest to a special purpose vehicle, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said.
Air India passenger flights were barred from landing in Hong Kong between August 18 and August 31 after 14 passengers on its Delhi-Hong Kong flight of August 14 tested positive for COVID-19 post arrival.
The Indian government disclosed that 176 aircraft operated by non-scheduled and general aviation operators lack flight data and cockpit voice recorders, raising safety concerns. The disclosure was made in response to a query in the Rajya Sabha.
The government proposes to divest 76 per cent of Air India, along with its shareholding in Air India Express and its ground-handling subsidiary, AISATS.
Air India is seeking government approval to raise a Rs 2,000 crore loan and refinance $819 million aircraft debt, which would help tide over the financial crisis.
Airports across the country have been placed on operational alert to manage potential flight diversions, unscheduled landings and passenger facilitation requirements.
The Supreme Court dismissed a petition related to the preliminary investigation report on the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, questioning the petitioner's motives and agenda.
Domestic air traffic grew by over 18 per cent last month compared to October last year as Air India's passenger load factor overshot that of IndiGo which had the largest number of flight cancellations, official data showed on Monday.
Re-rating of Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Container Corporation, Shipping Corporation, SAIL, and Hindustan Copper, for which the government has already shown intent to divest its stake, possible now, say analysts.
Air India is likely to rejig its team of directors shortly in view of retirement of some of its top officials.
Two aborted missions, three different ministers, multiple rule changes and two decades later, Indian taxpayers will no longer have to pay Rs 20 crore per day to keep the loss-making Air India flying. While opposition Congress expectedly attacked the decision as selling the family silver, DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said what Tata is getting is not a cash cow but an airline which is bleeding where money needs to be pumped in to refurbish obsolete aircraft and dust up strangled ones while being unable to touch any employee for one year and only be able to resize staff after paying a VRS. "It won't be a very easy task there. Only advantage is they (new Air India owner) are paying the price which they think they can manage. "They are not taking the excessive debt accumulated to fund years of losses. We are continuing it as an ongoing concern.... This process has also saved huge amount of taxpayers money going forward," Pandey told PTI.
The changes are in view of the requests received from interested bidders and the prevailing situation arising out of COVID-19.
'If you are selling family silver, and if you are not getting the right value, then what is the point?'
Air India buyer has to take over interest-bearing debt of Rs 16,500 crore a large portion of which is aircraft related, meaning they are backed by aircraft value
Anjuli Bhargava's musings on why the national carrier is well beyond a turnaround.
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