N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, has been appointed as the chairman of Air India by the airline's board, aviation industry sources said on Monday.
Both parties will discuss the issues and there will be a meeting again on May 28, he said.
Tata Sons is all set to acquire a residual stake of 16.33 per cent in AirAsia India from its joint venture (JV) partner AirAsia Berhad for $19 million (or Rs 142 crore) by early next year. The valuation is in accordance with the previous transaction under which AirAsia Berhad had sold its 32.6 per cent stake, said a banking source. Tata Group had increased its stake in AirAsia India at a valuation of $115 million.
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.
From croissants to Galouti kebabs and Medu vada, Indian carriers, both low-cost and full-service, are revising their in-flight menus to offer passengers a differentiated fare as competition is heating up amid the boom in air travel with the waning of Covid-19. On Monday, Air India, which was taken over by the Tata Group on January 27, unveiled its new domestic in-flight menu comprising gourmet meals, new appetizers, desserts, and local dishes. Air India's economy class passengers would now be served dishes such as Mushroom cheese omelette, Dry jeera aloo wedges, and Garlic tossed spinach and corn for breakfast, and Vegetable biryani, Malabar chicken curry, and mixed vegetable poriyal for lunch.
If all 102 grounded planes could fly, there will theoretically be 400 more Delhi-Mumbai flights every day.
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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.
Full-service airline Tata-SIA, submitted its application for the grant of Air Operator's Permit (AOP or flying license) in April.
Despite partial restoration of salaries, pilots across airlines remain dissatisfied, throwing challenges for managers.
The Tatas are rather overwhelmed with some facets of the airline they have discovered, but even more unnerved by what they may not have yet uncovered, reveals Anjuli Bhargava.
Teh word means expanse.
This isn't the first instance of Vistara facing scrutiny from the regulator over improper pilot training.
Air India's pilot unions on Monday alleged that working conditions are hostile at the airline and sought Tata group chairman N Chandrasekaran's intervention to resolve the issues. Tata group took control of loss-making Air India in January this year. The two pilot unions -- IPG and ICPA -- claimed that despite its unflinching support extended to Air India in its growth and expansion plan, the management has not reciprocated in the same manner.
The new airline has begun recruiting pilots and is close to confirming its top executives, including a Singapore Airlines executive as its chief executive officer.
Aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked Vistara to submit a daily report on flight cancellations and delays as the Tata group airline cancelled more than 50 flights for the second straight day on Tuesday amid non-availability of pilots.
In a bid to incentivise its staff and improve their performance, Air India may soon offer them employee stock options (ESOPs). The erstwhile national carrier, which was acquired by the salt-to-steel conglomerate Tata Group last year, will be the second company in the Group to have an ESOP policy. Tata Motors is the other Group company with an ESOP policy, which was implemented in 2018.
Ratan Tata on Friday welcomed the government accepting Tata Sons' bid of Rs 18,000 crore for the takeover of Air India, saying the airline provides a very strong market opportunity to the group even through it will take considerable effort to rebuild the debt-laden carrier. "Welcome Back, Air India," he said. "The Tata Group winning the bid for Air India is great news," he said in a statement.
Scholarships, sports and spirit define Phee Teik Yeoh, the new CEO of Vistara in India
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.
The number of domestic air travelers in India grew 2.42 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in April, reaching 13.2 million, according to data by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday.
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.
Tata Group's takeover of loss-making national carrier Air India is most likely delayed by a month till January as the completion of procedures taking longer than expected, an official said on Monday. In October, the government accepted the highest bid made by a Tata Sons company for 100 per cent equity shares of Air India and Air India Express along with its 50 per cent stake in ground-handling company AISATS -- the first privatisation in 20 years. At that time, the government had stated that it wanted to complete the transactions, which included Tatas paying Rs 2,700 crore in cash, by December end.
Air India has laid off more than 180 non-flying staff in recent weeks, sources said while the airline maintained that the affected people were not able to utilise the voluntary retirement schemes and reskilling opportunities. The loss-making Air India was taken over by the Tata Group in January 2022 and since then, efforts are being made to streamline the business model. An Air India spokesperson on Friday said that as part of the fitment process, employees in non-flying functions have been assigned roles based on organisational needs and individual merit.
The spot airfares on major routes, where Vistara cancelled flights on Tuesday, have surged by up to 38 per cent, according to data provided by Cleartrip. The spot airfares for Tuesday were compared with March 5. Vistara has cancelled 52 flights on routes such as Delhi-Indore, Delhi-Srinagar, Mumbai-Kochi, and Bengaluru-Udaipur as a certain section of pilots went on sick leave, reportedly protesting against the new salary structure that was introduced as part of the airline's merger with Air India.
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.
Though India's airlines are certainly bleeding, they haven't yet faced the ignominy of shutting down.
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.
Planemakers have started pitching their latest aircraft to a privatised Air India which has been acquired by salt-to-steel conglomerate Tata Sons. European aerospace major Airbus on Monday said that it is in talks with the airline to sell its long haul aircraft Airbus A350-900. The wide-body aircraft is capable of flying non-stop between India and United States- one of the most popular and revenue generating routes.
After the Dark edition followed by the Gold and Kaziranga editions, Tata Motors now introduces the Jet experience in select high-end models.
India's largest public sector bank State Bank of India (SBI) will support Tata group's bid for soon-to-be-privatised Air India by subscribing to Tata Sons debentures or funding the special purpose vehicle (SPV) set up by Tata Sons for the acquisition. Bankers said the credit rating of Tata group's holding company is "AAA" signifying high safety and a combination of Air India with its existing airline businesses would make it a formidable player - leading to a duopoly market with IndiGo. It would also open many business opportunities, including in the retail segment, an official said.
The group began to outperform the broader market only with the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 while earlier it was largely keeping pace with the Sensex. The group's market cap is up 164.4 per cent since the end of March 2020 against a 105 per cent rally in the Sensex.
The Maharaja was Air India's original symbol and Dominic Xavier is rooting for the airline to be snapped up by the Tatas and returned to its old glory.
Singapore government's sovereign wealth fund Temasek is looking to invest $10 billion in India during the next three years, Ravi Lambah, Temasek's head of India and strategic initiatives, said.
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.
Air India's use of artificial intelligence (AI) has had a huge impact on the airline major's call centre volumes and the technology integration has reduced costs by 100 times, a senior company executive said on Wednesday. The airline launched its own chatbot AI.g, earlier known as Maharaja, in May 2023. The chatbot has answered approximately two million queries since its launch, handling 93 per cent of customer inquiries without needing to pass them on to call centre agents, said Sathya Ramaswamy, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Air India.
Tata said that their exposure in the airline was merely a "financial investment", does not represent a major re-entry into the airlines business.
The Tata Group-owned Air India has readied a five-year transformation plan, which is expected to take its domestic market share to 30 per cent, up from 8.4 per cent logged in June. IndiGo leads with a market share of 58.8 per cent. The transformation plan--Vihaan.AI-unveiled on Thursday revolves around tripling the domestic market share with investments in new aircraft, technology and improvements in customer service.
After facing significant flight disruptions recently, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan on Thursday told the airline staff that the "worst is behind us" and operations have already stabilised. Pilot woes have forced the Tata Group airline to temporarily cut down capacity by 10 per cent or 25-30 flights daily. While acknowledging that things should have been planned better, Kannan said it has been a "learning experience".
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.
With better utilisation of slots, foreign flying rights, and greater international connections, the operator of India's largest airport feels a privatised Air India will bring commercial benefit to Delhi airport and help it revive quicker from the pandemic shock. Delhi is the largest hub for Air India, with most of its long-haul flights to the US and Europe being operated from here. The airport plans to give its most modern terminal 3 (T3) exclusively to the Tata Group.
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