On Monday, the ministry withdrew foreign traffic rights it had granted to Kingfisher Airlines.
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.
There could be a fare war in the Indian skies to beat competition from Vistara.
The Tatas operated the country's first airline. It was later acquired by the government.
TCS has acquired Singapore Airlines' 51 per cent stake in Aviation Software Development Consultancy India Ltd for Rs 14.02 crore.
With Air India's July 31 deadline to join Star Alliance approaching, senior officials of the global umbrella body of airline and those from the national carrier would soon meet Indian government officials to discuss the progress made in this direction.
Industries such as aviation and hospitality have many silos within them and Aionos, the joint venture between Interglobe Enterprises (IGE) and Assago Group, is an attempt to bridge them and boost efficiencies using artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, Rahul Bhatia told Business Standard on Tuesday. Bhatia, the Group Managing Director of IGE, serves as the majority shareholder in India's largest airline, IndiGo. Additionally, IGE operates 21 hotels under the Ibis brand and runs a logistics company called Movin.
The government has notified the agreement between Air India and special purpose vehicle AIAHL for the transfer of non-core assets, ahead of the national airline's takeover by the Tata Group. The government had in October last year, inked the share purchase agreement with the Tata Group for the sale of national carrier Air India for Rs 18,000 crore. The Tata Group is expected to take full control of the airline, it founded in 1932, on Thursday. The cash component of the deal would come once the handover process is completed. The Tata Group would pay Rs 2,700 crore cash and take over Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt.
The last date to submit bids is March 17 but the deadline could be extended if there are requests from potential bidders.
The government is keeping its options open.
In its first move to significantly expand the fleet after the Tatas took over, Air India has leased 25 Airbus narrow-body aircraft and five Boeing wide-body planes. These will enter service starting December, the company said on Monday. A wide-body plane has a bigger fuel tank, allowing it to travel longer distances such as India-US routes.
This is the largest single dose of equity infusion into the joint venture since its launch in January 2015.
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.
Here are the world's most courteous, friendly, helpful and efficient airline crews from each continent.
Finalisation of the date for joining the elite club will be decided only by Air India, Star Alliance vice-president for corporate office, Christian Klick, told reporters here during a media interaction.
India's newest airline-Vistara is bullish on growth prospects.
It offers a real opportunity for the flag carrier to compete on the world stage, backed by a leading conglomerate with deep pockets like the Tatas, observes Indrajit Gupta.
Salt-to-software conglomerate Tata group was among "multiple" entities who on Monday put in preliminary bids for buying the government's stake in loss-making carrier Air India.
Vistara starts flying in India.
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 government on Monday signed the share purchase agreement with Tata Sons for the sale of national carrier Air India for Rs 18,000 crore. Earlier this month, the government had accepted an offer by Talace Pvt Ltd, a unit of the holding company of the salt-to-software conglomerate, to pay Rs 2,700 crore cash and take over Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt. Following that, on October 11 a Letter of Intenet (LoI) was issued to the Tata Group confirming the government's willingness to sell its 100 per cent stake in the airline.
Once pioneers in civil aviation, the Tata group is unlikely to get into the sector because of "destructive competition", its outgoing Chairman Ratan Tata said.
Curtailment of flights between India and China will help Air India and other airlines to boost their seat occupancy and market share.
Chief Operating Officer, Sanjiv Kapoor will be leaving the company effective October 31, 2015 after two years with the organisation.
Ghosh said the Tata Trusts Cancer Care Initiative is one of the largest health care programmes in the world
National carrier Air India became part of the 27-member global airlines grouping Star Alliance, as budget airline AirAsia India launched operations and Tata-SIA joint venture carrier Vistara received the flying permit and announced its intentions to start operations from January 9.
The $100 billion Tata group conglomerate is a major beneficiary of the decision to open up aviation in India.
After more than two decades and three attempts, the government has finally sold its flagship national carrier Air India, and it is deja vu for Maharaja as it returned home to its founding father the Tata group. Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy (JRD) Tata founded the airline in 1932 and named it Tata Airlines. In 1946, the aviation division of Tata Sons was listed as Air India, and in 1948, the Air India International was launched with flights to Europe. The international service was among the first public-private partnerships in India, with the government holding 49 per cent, the Tatas keeping 25 per cent and the public owning the rest. In 1953, Air India was nationalised and for the next over four decades it remained the prized possession for India controlling the majority of the domestic airspace.
The airline has also inked a deal to take 12 A320s from Singapore's Tiger Airways on lease.
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.
Paving the way for Air India's entry into the largest global airlines' grouping, Star Alliance today unanimously decided to recommence the national carrier's integration process that was suspended in 2011.
J R D Tata and Air India... Mrigank Warrier explores one of India's eternal love stories.
However, any progress on the deal depends upon Goyal giving up control of the company.
Wadia group-owned Go First will temporarily suspend flights on May 3 and 4 amid severe fund crunch, the airline's chief Kaushik Khona said on Tuesday.
Singapore Airlines first approached the Tatas, its old choice for a venture in India, and was aware of AirAsia negotiations.
IndiGo, Jet, SpiceJet and GoAir demand level playing field in aviation policy, say government can't favour only two new airlines.
The airline would offer access to in-flight connectivity only on Dreamliners and Airbus 321 aircraft on international routes.
IndiGo was set up in 2006 by businessman Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal, a former CEO for US Airways Group.
