'Welcome' onboard: Tata chief N Chandra to Singapore Airlines CEO Goh Choon Phong

NEW DELHI: The top management of Tata Group and Singapore Airlines (SIA) have reiterated their commitment to making Air India a world class airline in the not so distant future. A symbolic ceremony was held at Tata’s Taj Mahal Hotel, Delhi, on Monday to “celebrate” the Nov 12 merger ot Vistara into AI.
Tata Sons chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said: “It has been a little over 2.5 years since the homecoming of Air India to the Tata Group. This week’s merger between Air India and Vistara is an important milestone in our commitment to transform Air India into a world-class global airline. SIA continues to be our strategic partner in our aviation journey and we welcome them to Air India.”
SIA CEO Goh Choon Phong said: “This merger marks a pivotal moment for Indian aviation. Working with our valued, long-standing partner Tata Sons, the SIA Group will support the ongoing transformation of the enlarged Air India Group, offering our stewardship and expertise where possible. We are focused on helping to restore Air India to its leading position in the Indian aviation market and creating an airline Group that everyone in India can be proud of.”
“For the SIA Group, the completion of the merger reinforces our long-standing direct participation in one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets. Singapore Airlines is committed to deepening our commercial collaboration with Air India, and finding ways to provide greater value and enhanced options to our customers on flights between India and Singapore, and beyond,” Goh Choon Phong added.
Led by the late Ratan Tata, the Tata Group with SIA as its partner had multiple times in the past 25 years shown interest in acquiring erstwhile AI, when Indian Airlines used to be a separate entity essentially focussed on domestic and nearby international routes. However that could not happen then due to various reasons. The Tatas did not shelve their plan and in 2015 launched full service Vistara with SIA as 49 per cent stakeholder. Now Tatas have consolidated their airlines by merging Vistara into AI and erstwhile AirAsia India into AI Express. SIA is 25.1 per cent stakeholder in the merged AI.
Consolidating the four airlines — Air India-Vistara & AI Express-erstwhile AirAsia India — within the Air India Group into one full-service and one low-cost airline is part of the ongoing, five-year Vihaan.AI transformation programme. The merges are to create an AI Group with a significant presence across all key segments of the Indian market.
Post-merger, the AI Group operates a combined fleet of 300 aircraft covering 55 domestic and 48 international destinations, with 312 routes and 8,300 flights per week. The airline will offer extended worldwide connectivity to over 800 destinations through more than 75 codeshare and interline partners. The collective staff strength stands at over 30,000.