The Air India Group has completed on Tuesday the operational integration and legal merger between Air India and Vistara, creating a full-service carrier of scale and marking a significant milestone in the post-privatisation transformation journey.
Post-merger, Air India Group will operate a combined fleet of 300 aircraft covering 55 domestic and 48 international destinations, with 312 routes and 8,300 flights per week. The collective staff strength stands at over 30,000 now.
Air India, the national carrier, claims it operates more than 5,600 weekly flights, connecting more than 90 domestic and international destinations with its fleet of 208 aircraft. The low-cost unit, Air India Express, operates 2,700 weekly flights and connects more than 45 destinations in India and abroad with a fleet of 90 aircraft.
"The coming together of Air India and Vistara marks the final stage of the consolidation and restructuring process of the post-privatisation transformation journey of the Air India Group, hence an important milestone," said Air India Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Campbell Wilson.
With the Vistara-Air India merger, Singapore Airlines, which had a 49 percent stake in Vistara, would emerge as a 25.1 per cent shareholder of the outcome Air India group.
"Given the scale and scope of this project and its unprecedented nature, I would like to acknowledge the support received from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) and others in making this merger possible," Wilson added.
This was preceded by the consolidation of the Group's low-cost airlines Air India Express and AIX Connect (earlier known as Air Asia India) on Oct 1.
It falls under the five-year transformation program, Vihaan.AI, which aims to make Air India Group the world's best global civil aviation company with an Indian heart through consolidating four airlines owned by Tata into one airline group that operates one full-service airline and one low-cost airline.
The integrated full-service airline will continue to operate flights as 'Air India' with the airline code 'AI'. After consolidation, Vistara aircraft shall be operated by Air India with the Vistara crew and service proposition and shall be identifiable by a four-digit flight number starting with the digit '2' (UK 955 will become AI 2955). In the meantime, the existing members of Vistara's loyalty programme Club Vistara have been migrated to Air India's Flying Returns programme, rechristened 'Maharaja Club'.
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