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.
The airline will launch an additional daily flight on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Delhi-Ahmedabad routes during the period.
India perhaps is the only market in the world where full-service and low-cost fares have become one.
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.
Tata-SIA joint venture carrier Vistara on Friday announced scaling up of operations and said it plans to operate 164 flights per week.
It and Vistara both book slots here; former also likely to launch Mumbai flights from early 2015.
Vistara is likely to offer 148 seats in a three-class configuration in its Airbus A320s, industry sources said.
Spicejet receives maximum complaints regarding refunds
Chief Operating Officer, Sanjiv Kapoor will be leaving the company effective October 31, 2015 after two years with the organisation.
The industry is hoping the Tatas deepen their dive and offer two stable airlines -- a Vistara merged into Air India servicing the international routes, and an AirAsia India merged with Air India Express that competes with the low fare airlines in India and offers destinations within five hours, says Anjuli Bhargava.
Air India said it has also written to the Shiv Sena communicating the decision to cancel the ticket. Shiv Sena Secretary Anil Desai said that he has asked Gaikwad to change his travel plans as the party doesn't want the tensions to escalate.
The government has begun consultations on relaxing the eligibility criteria for allowing Indian carriers to fly abroad, Rajya Sabha was informed.
British Airways, Lufthansa, Etihad and Singapore Airlines are scouting for an Indian partner that meets the net worth criterion
Full service product with complementary meal service would be provided on all domestic flights from December 1, with the buy-on-board concept being discontinued, an airline statement said.
The first Airbus A-320 aircraft of Tata-SIA joint venture Vistara airline, painted with its logo and livery, landed at the IGI Airport in New Delhi on Wednesday, taking the carrier a step closer to its launch.
The new initiative allows passengers to amend or cancel their booking without any penalty fee by simply using the "manage booking" facility
Vistara was operating from Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Goa.
Interestingly, the full service carrier's launch coincides with the concluding day of the the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas celebrations scheduled to be held in Gujarat's capital city Gandhinagar, near Ahmedabad, from January 7 to January 9.
'I am seven months into the job, but it feels like seven years.'
Delhi is the second Indian destination after Bengaluru.
Indian airlines currently are required to have a minimum fleet of five aircraft and five years of operational experience for starting international services.
A senior DGCA official said 23,403 departures per week have been finalised, covering 103 airports, which is 1.2 per cent higher than the 23,117 operated during the previous winter schedule.
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.
Air India's former executive director Jitender Bhargava feels the airline should oppose the Tata-Singapore Airline plan to set up a hub in Delhi.
Almost all Indian airlines like SpiceJet, IndiGo, GoAir, Jet Airways and Air India, have been offering discounted fares on domestic sectors almost on a month-to-month basis.
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.
Sources say the arilines has inducted a senior pilot from IndiGo to head its safety team.
'India is a high-cost market but that is man-made. The government can change that with a stroke of the pen.'
By 2025, most of India's large cities would require a second airport, and Mumbai may need a third airport by 2030.
Sources in the know confirmed Vistara, the joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, had booked six slots at the airport in New Delhi, adding it was ready to fly once it secured the government's nod.
Vistara is trying to be leaner and meaner, while staying focused on the original brand promise; it aims to be profitable by FY21. Arindam Majumder reports.
The biggest challenge is not the airline's debt, but downsizing its 16,800 employees, says Surajeet Dasgupta.
Vistara has entered a country that has been sobered down to reality.
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 response to the sale has been overwhelming.
Vistara will operate from its base Delhi and fly to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Goa, Chandigarh, Srinagar, Jammu and Patna in the first year as per its plan submitted to DGCA while applying for the AOP.
Vistara has fine-tuned strategies to tap the elite class and Jet Airways may lose out on market share in times to come.
The year gone by saw the high and mighty of the corporate world face the music in the Delhi High Court which held that the telecom majors are amenable to CAG audit and Mukesh Ambani's RIL struggling hard to get rid of an FIR lodged on gas pricing by the 49-day-old AAP regime.
Ajit Singh says will seek cabinet nod to scrap 5-year, 20 aircraft rule.
