Tag Archives: Air India

Singapore Airlines confirms merger talks of Vistara-Air India with Tatas

Singapore Airlines (SIA) said that it is exploring a potential merger of Vistara with Tata Group’s Air India. Tata Group has a 51 per cent stake in Vistara, while SIA holds the balance 49 per cent, reports Financial Express.

This is the first time that SIA has officially acknowledged that it is in talks with Tata Group on the possibility of merging the two airlines. “The discussions seek to deepen the existing partnership between SIA and Tata, and may include a potential integration of Vistara and Air India,” SIA said in a statement to the Singapore Stock Exchange. “The discussions are ongoing and no definitive terms have been agreed upon between the parties,” it added.

It is unclear at this stage what stake, if any, SIA would have if Vistara merges into Air India, or whether fresh funds would be needed for Air India. Still, the change of stance by SIA is significant as it did not agree to partner Tata Group when the latter was bidding for Air India. Tatas had expected that SIA would join it and it would bid for the state-owned carrier through Vistara. Though, SIA did not agree to it, it waived the no-compete clause, which enabled Tata Group to go ahead with its bid for Air India.

The integration of Vistara with Air India will create the second largest airline in the country, after IndiGo. The Tata Group is also merging its other airline, AirAsia India with Air India Express. The Competition Commission of India has approved this merger.

Tata Sons chairman, N Chandrasekaran has often said that the Group’s airline businesses, which operate on thin margins, must be consolidated to ensure operational efficiencies and cost control.

“We will definitely have both full service and low-cost carrier ,” Chandrasekaran said few days ago at a public function. “It’s a long journey. We will have to work on many aspects of the airline and we are working at great speed. Essentially, we will have one airline with two platforms,” he had added.

Air India adds 20 additional flights per week to UK and US

In a major initiative to bolster its international footprint, Air India announced 20 additional flights every week to Birmingham, London and San Francisco. This is part of the airline’s on-going endeavour to reclaim its position as a leader on the international aviation map. The additional flights to these 3 global destinations will be introduced in a phased manner from October to December this year.

With 5 additional flights a week to Birmingham, 9 additional flights to London and 6 additional flights a week to San Francisco, Air India will be able to offer over 5,000 additional seats every week to customers and ensure ample choice in terms of connectivity, convenience, and cabin space.

Air India’s current schedule of 34 flights every week to the UK will now go up to 48 flights. Birmingham will receive extra five flights per week, three from Delhi and two additional from Amritsar. London will receive nine additional weekly flights, of which, five are from Mumbai, three from Delhi and one from Ahmedabad. Altogether, seven Indian cities will now have non-stop Air India flights to the UK’s capital.

Flights from India to the United States will increase from 34 to 40 per week. Air India will now connect Mumbai with San Francisco with a thrice weekly service, and reinstate a three-times-weekly Bengaluru operation. This takes Air India’s San Francisco offering from 10 to 16 weekly, with non-stop service from Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Commenting on the development, Campbell Wilson, CEO & MD, Air India, said, “As Air India reinvents itself under the Vihaan.AI transformation programme, adding frequency and improving connectivity from major Indian cities to more international destinations is a significant focus. This sizeable frequency increase to the US and the UK, as well as the addition of new city pairs and improved aircraft cabin interiors, comes just 10 months after Air India’s acquisition by the Tata Group. It is a clear signal of our intent, and an early step towards a much bigger aspiration.”

In addition to leasing new aircraft, Air India has been working to restore existing narrow-body and wide-body aircraft to the operating fleet. Prior to the expansion described above, the airline has already enabled frequency increases between Delhi and Vancouver as well as the addition of numerous domestic services.

Unmatched customer service and convenience is one of the five identified pillars of Vihaan.AI, Air India’s transformational roadmap. The other pillars of Vihaan.AI include robust operations, industry leadership, commercial efficiency and profitability and attracting best industry talent.

Air India leases 30 aircraft for expansion; more US flights in the offing

Air India has leased 30 new aircraft to boost domestic and international operations over the next 15 months, which includes adding new US flights from Mumbai and Bengaluru, reports David Casey for Routes.

The Tata Group-owned carrier has signed leases and letters of intent for 21 Airbus A320neos, four A321neos and five Boeing 777-200LRs. The new aircraft will increase the airline’s fleet by more than 25%.

The 777-200LRs will join the fleet between December 2022 and March 2023, and will be deployed on routes from Indian metro cities to destinations in the US. The configuration of the aircraft will result in Air India offering premium economy on long-haul flights for the first time.

Mumbai (BOM) will see the addition of routes to San Francisco (SFO) and New York John F Kennedy (JFK), coming alongside its existing 3X-weekly service to Newark Liberty (EWR). The planned start dates and frequencies for the two new routes are yet to be announced.

Nonstop service from Bengaluru (BLR) to San Francisco will also resume on October. 31. Air India said that three round trips per week are planned, although OAG Schedules Analyser data shows that flights have initially been scheduled for twice a week.

“These new aircraft, together with existing aircraft being returned to service, address an immediate need for more capacity and connectivity, and mark a strong step forward,” Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson said. “Air India has exciting expansion and renewal plans, of which these new aircraft are just the beginning.”

During the week commencing September 12, Air India has six India-US routes in its network, flying from Delhi (DEL) to Chicago O’Hare (ORD), New York JFK, Newark, San Francisco and Washington Dulles (IAD), alongside its BOM-EWR service.

In total, the carrier has 20,662 two-way seats available between India and the US. This compares with 20,878 at this time in 2019 before the pandemic.

Air India’s narrowbody fleet currently stands at 70 aircraft, of which 54 are in service. The remaining 16 aircraft will progressively return to service by early 2023. The carrier’s widebody fleet also stands at 43 aircraft, of which 33 are operational. The rest will return to service by early 2023. (Source: Routes)

 

Air India embarks on strategy to consolidate its workspaces across the country

Air India Group has embarked on its strategy to consolidate workspaces across the country as an integral part of its transformation agenda.

The consolidation of workspaces is being undertaken to improve collaboration, strengthen the organisation’s culture, upgrade employees’ work environment and facilities, and more easily deploy new technology.

Beginning from this month, a number of Air India offices presently housed in government owned premises across the country are being vacated. The largest base of staff, located in Delhi’s Airlines House, Safdarjung Complex, GSD Complex and IGI Terminal One, will move to an interim office space in Gurugram, National Central Region (NCR), before ultimately relocating to a campus at the newly-constructed Vatika One-On-One development in early 2023.

Together with the relocation and consolidation of offices, the airline’s regionalised organisation structure will be progressively disbanded and replaced with a centralised one. This will allow consolidation of presently-dispersed teams, co-location of managers with their teams and physical adjacency of related functions. The physical move will be accompanied by greater focus on team and culture building, together with efforts to enhance accountability and result orientation.

Besides Air India, the Vatika One-on-One campus is being provisioned to accommodate Air India Express and Air Asia India, and the establishment of group-level functions for better capability, effectiveness and economies of scale across the airlines.

Commenting on the initiative, Campbell Wilson, CEO & Managing Director, Air India said, “The consolidation of many premises under one roof, and the evolution from a regionalised to centralised structure, is a significant milestone in Air India’s transformation journey. Aside from improving the opportunity for collaboration, upgrading employees’ work environment and enhancing effectiveness both within and across functions, it is a powerful catalyst for cultural transformation. Together with the deployment of new technology and communication platforms, and the co-location of Air India with sister airlines, it is an exciting step forward.”

The transition to the interim facility in NCR is being undertaken during the course of September ‘22. Key relevant support to employees, who are planning to shift their base, is being provided. Air India will also be providing last mile connectivity to the office premises from the closest public transport stations for ease of travel. Flexible work hours are also being offered to employees.

A senior team is also relooking at the offices in different cities which are housed in legacy premises, with some in Chennai and Kochi having already moved to modern office premises.

Tata Sons plans to raise USD 4bn for Air India: Report

Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of the Tata group, plans to raise USD 4 billion to infuse fresh capital into Air India and refinance costly debt, according to a report by Mint, citing two people directly aware of the matter.

Tata plans to raise funds through a mix of equity and hybrid debt to refinance a part of Air India’s debt and revamp the airline, the people told Mint, requesting anonymity.

“The Tata group will soon start the process of hiring investment advisers, although informal discussions with a few foreign lenders and some private equity funds are already underway,” one of the people told Mint.

“The debt refinancing portion will be relatively easier as lenders within Tata’s existing banking relationships will step in,” the second person told Mint. “The equity component of the transaction may take a bit longer given that globally, the number of private equity funds that invest in airline business are relatively few,” the person added.

Spokespeople for Tata Sons did not respond to an emailed query by Mint on the fundraising plan sent on Friday. (Source: Mint)

Air India to have systems to proactively alert fliers about flight changes, delays

Air India will put in place new systems to proactively alert fliers about changes or delays in flight schedules and also set up a coordination team to address airport-specific issues, according to an internal communication. After reviewing block times, airport connecting times and aircraft as well as crew rotations, Tatas-owned Air India has identified various improvement areas for bettering overall performance.

In the internal communication, Air India CEO and Managing Director Campbell Wilson said the airline would seek airport slots to carry out the improvements. While mentioning that the airline is unlikely to get all the slot changes it would like this season, he said, “now that we know what we want we can progressively refine season-by-season,” he said.

The airline, which had a domestic market share of 8.4 per cent in July, will also be setting up an airport/ hub control/ regional control coordination team to better understand airport-specific issues. According to the communication, the airline’s airport operations teams are working closely with ground handling partners across the network to improve governance and performance.

“… we are acquiring better customer-facing systems to proactively alert fliers of schedule changes or delays in advance, and enable them to self-change flights where relevant,” it noted. Further, it said seven scenarios now trigger advance customer notifications, and its IT and customer experience teams are working hard to fully deploy these new systems in the next couple of months. Tatas took over Air India in January this year. (Source FE)