An exclusive excerpt from The Tatas: How A Family Built A Business And A Nation.
This is the first time that AirAsia chief has raised concerns about the dual airline strategy of the Tata group, his partner.
The Foreign Investment Promotion Board, headed by DEA Secretary Arvind Mayaram, approved the proposal at its meeting in New Delhi.
AirAsia is facing a legal challenge from Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subramanian Swamy, whose petition comes up for hearing at the Delhi HIgh Court on Wednesday.
Samsung last week suspended sales of its latest flagship smartphone and announced a recall of 2.5 million units already sold, after faulty batteries caused some handsets to explode during charging.
Maverick entrepreneur Tony Fernandes, who built low-cost carrier AirAsia to be a formidable player in South-East Asia, is prepared for a price battle in the Indian skies.
Singapore Airlines on Tuesday said Vistara will be merged with Tata group-owned Air India. Tata group owns a 51 per cent stake in Vistara, and the remaining 49 per cent shareholding is with Singapore Airlines (SIA). As part of the transaction, SIA will also invest Rs 2,058.5 crore in Air India.
It has aircraft utilisation target of 16 hours as against the current 13 hours.
Indian airlines will operate a total of 23,732 flights every week during the winter schedule, which is more than 8 per cent higher than the year-ago period, amid rising air traffic demand. The winter schedule 2023 -- effective from October 29 to March 30 next year -- for the scheduled carriers has been approved by aviation regulator DGCA. Go First, which stopped flying from May 3 and is undergoing an insolvency resolution process, will not be having any operations during the winter schedule.
The airline's chief had said it would focus more on tier-II cities. Already, the airline connects some of its major destinations from Tiruchirapalli, one of the busy tier-II hubs in Tamil Nadu.
CEO Mittu Chandilya said AirAsia will retain the Rs 990 fare even when the company goes for expansion of new routes.
The first A320 flight is scheduled to leave Bengaluru on June 12 afternoon, AirAsia India chief executive officer Mittu Chandilya told reporters in Chennai.
Singapore Airlines (SIA) is engaged in confidential talks with Tata Sons for merging Vistara with Air India, the flagship carrier of the Republic of Singapore informed the stock exchange in the Southeast Asian nation on Thursday in a first acknowledgement of a possible integration of the two airlines. "In line with its multi-hub strategy, SIA is currently in confidential discussions with the Tatas to explore a potential transaction in relation to the securities of Vistara and Air India. "The discussions seek to deepen the existing partnership between SIA and Tatas and may include a potential integration of Vistara and Air India," SIA said in a notification to the Singapore stock exchange. SIA owns 49 per cent stake in Vistara and is among the four airlines run by Tata Group.
Mittu Chandilya has promised himself and AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes that through the next four-five years, India operations would be the largest among those of AirAsia subsidiaries.
Air India Express on Thursday cancelled 85 flights or around 23 per cent of the total daily capacity as the disruptions due to the cabin crew shortage continue and said Air India will operate services on 20 of its routes to minimise inconvenience to passengers.
AirAsia's India plans may not be hit with the current crisis that the airline is going through
Vistara has a three-class configuration with business, premium economy and economy cabins.
The Air India Group has started vacating its offices, which are currently being operated from government-owned properties, from this month, as part of its strategy to consolidate workspaces across the country. The loss-making Air India and its international budget arm Air India Express were taken over by the Tata Group on January 27 this year, after successfully winning the bid for the airline on October 8, last year. Besides these two airlines, Tata Group also holds a majority 51 per cent stake in Vistara, its joint venture airline with Singapore Airlines (SIA), and a 83.67 per cent stake in budget carrier, AirAsia India.
Hopeful of launching flights in India in next 2-3 months, Air Asia chief Tony Fernandes says that the airline would introduce 'dramatically' low fares in the country, which would be cheapest in the market and take air travel to masses.
The carrier has two-third Indian directors on board, as mandated.
AirAsia will be the first airline to have Chennai as a hub and would focus on tier-II and III cities in South India.
On July 25 and 26, the regulator's team carried out the surveillance of Air India in the areas of internal audit, accident prevention work and availability of required technical manpower.
Air India will require more than 6,500 pilots to operate 470 aircraft that are to be supplied by Airbus and Boeing in the coming years, according to industry sources. Seeking to expand fleet as well as operations, the airline has placed orders for acquiring a total of 840 aircraft that includes an option to buy 370 planes. This is one of the largest aircraft order by any airline. Currently, Air India has around 1,600 pilots to operate its 113 aircraft fleet and in recent times, there have been instances of ultra-long haul flights getting cancelled or delayed due to shortage of crew.
AirAsia India CEO Mittu Chandilya, who was here on the Bengaluru-Jaipur launch flight, said both the cities have great potential to expand and hence the airline has set aggressive targets and beginning of flights to the two new routes was a part of the business strategy.
Unlike Malaysia where the airline did not have competition from other LCCs, its new market in India has quite a few thriving players, making it a late entrant.
The country's fourth budget carrier has also announced the addition of Kochi to its existing network from July 20.
Over 70 per cent of Jet's fleet has been grounded, leading to massive cancellations.
Recruitment and import of aircraft still to get going
AirAsia runs a joint venture portal with Expedia and it is an exclusive online distribution channel for the airline.
The possible change in the airline's earlier decision is apparently due to various factors, the key being its relationship with the state government. Other states are a lot more interested and excited in having it.
The airline is also looking at cities in the northeast.
This is the third enforcement action against a Tata Group airline in over a month.
The airline would hire 100 cabin crew for the aircraft.
The reported buyback of Temasek's 20 per cent stake in Tata Play by Tata Sons will be the third instance of Tata Group providing an exit to a foreign partner in recent years. In 2018, Tata Sons paid $1.27 billion to DoCoMo to buy back 26 per cent of the group's telecommunication venture, Tata Teleservices. This was followed by Tata Sons acquiring AirAsia Berhad's 49 per cent stake in AirAsia India in two tranches to make it a wholly owned subsidiary.
FIA has filed two separate petitions challenging the approvals granted to Tata-Airasia and Tata-SIA Airlines deals respectively.
Sanjiv Kapoor questions the rival's change in strategy and claims of full load.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Friday moved the Delhi High Court seeking an order restraining the Centre from granting any approval to AirAsia for its operations in India.
AirAsia India, which is using the training facilities of its parent airline AirAsia in Malaysia, plans to set up similar facilities in India in the coming years, airline sources said.
Malaysian carrier AirAsia has tendered an apology, withdrawn all copies of its in-flight magazine Travel 3Sixty from circulation, and removed the same from its website, complying with a Directorate General of Civil Aviation order, for wrongly depicting India's map.
Budget airline AIX Connect has removed its manager from duty at Bengaluru airport following the incident of a flight taking off without Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot last week, a source said on Monday.
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