Air India has entered into an interline partnership with Bangkok Airways that will allow the Tata Group-owned airline’s passengers connections to 10 Southeast Asian destinations beyond the Thai capital.
25.08.2023 - 13:44 / skift.com / Amrita Ghosh
Indian conglomerate Tata Group has sought fair-trade regulator Competition Commission of India‘s approval for a merger between its Air India and Vistara — the company’s joint venture with Singapore Airlines — into a single full service carrier called Air India. This is separate from the already underway (and regulator-approved) merger of Air India Express and Air Asia India into a single low cost carrier, named Air India Express. Tata would hold 51 percent of the total equity of the merged entity while Singapore Airlines would own a 25.1 percent minority stake, according to a filing on the regulator’s website. Air India would also absorb all Vistara employees. Vistara currently has about 5,103 employees, and around 80 percent are operational staff, including pilots, cabin crew and engineers. The merger, announced in November last year, would create a stronger rival to India’s dominant carrier IndiGo and help Singapore Airlines solidify its foothold in one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets. Air India recently placed a mega order for 470 aircraft from Boeing and Airbus as it plans to become a dominant player globally.
Betting big on religious destinations for expansion, IPO-bound hospitality and travel technology company Oyo has announced that it will add 50 properties in Ayodhya in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh this year. Of these, about 25 will be homestays run by homeowners and another 25 will be small and medium hotels with 10 to 20 rooms each. “We have started onboarding homestays already. Ayodhya is the top spiritual city in our plans of expanding Oyo footprints across major religious corridors in India,” said Anuj Tejpal, chief merchant officer of Oyo. Oyo’s Cultural Travel 2022 Round-up Report highlighted that spiritual travel is a key contributor to the domestic travel recovery in India.
Indian airlines have witnessed an annual growth of 51.7 percent in passenger traffic during January-March 2023 as compared to the corresponding period last year, according to Indian aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation. Domestic airlines carried 375.04 lakh passengers between January-March 2023, as against 247.23 lakh in the same period last year. Indian airlines carried 128.93 lakh passengers in March 2023 alone as compared to 106.19 lakh in March 2022. IndiGo remained the market leader with a 55.7 percent share, followed by Air India at 9 percent and Vistara at 8.8 percent. The passenger load factor for various airlines in March shows SpiceJet recording the highest at 92.3 percent, followed by Vistara at 91.6 percent and Go First at 90.2 percent, the regulator said.
Radisson Hotel Group has announced the signing of three new hotels under its Park Inn & Suites by
Air India has entered into an interline partnership with Bangkok Airways that will allow the Tata Group-owned airline’s passengers connections to 10 Southeast Asian destinations beyond the Thai capital.
Antitrust watchdog Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved Tata group’s plan to merge its full-service carriers Air India and Vistara.
Clearly Vinod Kannan, the CEO of Vistara, may have had to field this question on the possible Vistara-Air India merger one too many times.
Airbus plans to deepen its industrial presence in India, Chief Executive Guillaume Faury said on Wednesday after meeting the country’s prime minister.
Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines have agreed to consolidate Air India and Vistara by March 2024.
Air India is close to placing landmark orders for as many as 500 jetliners worth tens of billions of dollars from both Airbus and Boeing as it carves out an ambitious renaissance under the Tata Group conglomerate, industry sources said on Sunday.
Indian carrier Vistara reported its first-ever net profit for the quarter ending December 2022, according to statement from the airline on Monday.
Air India has sealed a jumbo deal for about 500 new planes worth more than $100 billion at list prices, in what could become the single largest order by any airline as it seeks to reinvent itself under its new owners, industry sources told Reuters.
The Tatas will let go of Indian full-service carrier Vistara as they look to merge the airline with the more “internationally-recognized” Air India, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said on Monday.
India will invest around $12 billion over the next two years in airports, aircraft and recruitment to meet the booming demand for air travel. The country aims to increase the number of airports from the present 148 to 220 by 2025, for which private builders will contribute roughly $9 billion, with the balance coming from the government-run Airports Authority of India. It entails new terminal construction, greenfield projects, and refurbishment of existing buildings, including old military airfields from the colonial era, as per a Bloomberg report. “We need to put in place the civil aviation infrastructure and capabilities that by 2047 would be able to support a $20 trillion economy within India,” said the country’s civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia at the ongoing CAPA India Aviation Summit in New Delhi. Scindia said passenger capacity at India’s six major airports is expected to grow to 420 million in four years from 192 million today, and Indian carriers’ fleet will grow to 2,000 aircraft in five years from 700. Additionally, India has eased leasing rules for airlines to lease more aircraft to address aircraft shortages as travel rebounds from the pandemic. He also highlighted how India had tweaked its airplane leasing program to enable airlines to add more aircraft to meet passenger demand, including more “wet leasing,” or renting of planes with crew, for domestic and international routes. Tata Group-owned Air India last month announced a record order for 470 jets and is due to take another 25 leased aircraft.
Indian companies have failed to set targets to reduce corporate travel emissions, according to an annual report by campaign group Transport & Environment. Globally, only 50 companies out of 322 have set targets to reduce business travel, with information technology (IT) services company Wipro paving the way in India. Wipro has achieved a 15-20 percent reduction in air travel emissions between the 2015 and 2020 period. Among all 10 Indian companies featured in the ranking report, only IT services provider Tech Mahindra reports on air travel emissions specifically. “Advancements taking place in India are mostly being led by the technology industry. We invite these technology companies to continue to work on their travel policies and demonstrate leadership to catalyze change in other industries,” said Denise Auclair, corporate travel manager at Transport & Environment. Of the companies that have targets, only four companies meet the “gold standard” of reporting air travel emissions and commitment to reducing them by 50 percent or more, by 2025 or sooner. These are Novo Nordisk (pharmaceuticals, Denmark), Swiss Re (finance, Switzerland), Fidelity International (finance, Britain) and ABN Amro (finance, the Netherlands).
Indian airlines are expected to record a consolidated loss of $1.6 to 1.8 billion in the financial year 2023-24 ending March 31, 2024, according to aviation consultancy CAPA India. The full-service carriers are predicted to incur a loss of $1.1-$1.2 billion. With a net induction of 132 planes next fiscal, Indian airlines are estimated to take the total fleet of all carriers to around 816 aircraft. However, more than 100 aircraft from different Indian carriers are grounded as a result of supply chain and other issues. Highlighting the potential for growth in aviation, India’s civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that it was time for India to look at manufacturing aerospace products. He added that the aggregate fleet size of domestic carriers is estimated to reach around 2,000 aircraft over the next five to seven years. He claims that by the end of this year, up to 15 Flying Training Organizations (FTOs) could be established, bringing the total number of such organizations to 50 from the current 35. He emphasized the expansion of the drone industry, stating that it is projected to reach a value of approximately $40 billion by 2030 and produce about 250,000 million employees. All industries have an S-shaped evolution curve, and the minister noted that India is currently in the “infancy and growth phase” of its civil aviation industry.