India’s Tata Sons is taking over lossmaking Air India in a $2.4b deal that returns the business to its original founders 68 years after it was nationalised by the post-independence government. The 152-year-old conglomerate was the winning bidder in a protracted privatisation process, having offered $368m in cash for a 100% stake and agreed to take on $2b of the airline’s total $8.2b in debts. The rest of the debt will remain with the state. The sale — due to be completed by the end of December — fulfils a promise made by PM Narendra Modi’s government, after its previous attempt at privatisation in 2018 failed to attract a single bidder for the carrier, which loses about $1b a year. The government, which had sought to retain a 26% stake in its first attempt to sell off the business, subsequently sweetened the terms to attract buyers. “Air India loses Rs200m ($2.6m) a day. Those losses — after the handover — will not come to the taxpayers,” said Tuhin Kanta Pandey, secretary of the finance ministry’s investment department, when the deal was announced. The takeover is also a milestone for Tata Group, which has long had ambitions in the aviation sector and already owns stakes in two small domestic airlines — Vistara, a joint venture with Singapore Airlines, and Air Asia India. Together, these two account for about 11% of the domestic market. “Welcome back, Air India,” Ratan Tata, former chair of the group, wrote on Twitter after the announcement. “While, admittedly, it will take considerable effort to rebuild Air India, it will hopefully provide a very strong market opportunity to the Tata Group’s presence in the aviation sector.” According to government statistics, Air India today carries less than 12% of India’s domestic passenger traffic, even though New Delhi has provided more than $14b in financial support since early 2009.<br/>
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All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines have pledged to work together to promote Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), in view of the industry’s long-term objective of achieving carbon neutrality by 2025. In a joint report on the outlook for the development of SAF in Japan, the two carriers note that SAF production is not as advanced in Asia as in Europe or North America, but that the region’s SAF market should eventually reach Y22t ($197b). According to the carriers, global SAF production amounts to less than 0.03% of total demand, creating an urgent need for production and utilisation. They list several sources of SAF feedstock including biomass, cooking oil waste, and exhaust gasses. “In order to achieve their ambitious environmental goals by 2050, airlines must accelerate the technological development, production, and utilization of SAF through heightened cooperation and collaboration with industries that are connected to the aviation sector, as well as targeting SAF use of at least 10% by 2030,” say the two carriers. By 2050, ANA and JAL estimate that the maximum amount of SAF needed in Japan will be roughly 6.1 billion gallons. This is based on growth forecasts for air travel demand. In a table, the airlines indicate that fossil fuel will continue to power the airline sector throughout the 2020s, with SAF making up 10% of fuel by 2030. Only after 2030 will SAF start to make a major impact on overall fuel use, with SAF fully replacing fossil fuels by 2050.<br/>
SIA will ramp up its designated flights to bring vaccinated travellers into Singapore under an expanded quarantine-free travel scheme. Meanwhile, SIA's budget arm Scoot will resume three-times weekly non-stop flights between Singapore and Berlin. The moves come after the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore announced on Saturday that Singapore will extend the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) scheme to nine more countries in the coming weeks. From Oct 19, vaccinated travellers be able to fly to Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Britain and the United States. The scheme will be extended to South Korea from Nov 15, the Ministry of Transport had said on Friday. The update means that Singapore will have VTLs with 11 countries by Nov 15. The Republic had earlier started VTLs with Brunei and Germany. All 11 countries, except Brunei, are already open to travellers from Singapore, or will be open by the time the VTL starts. This would allow Singapore residents to travel, including for leisure, and return without a stay-home notice requirement. Travellers have to fly into Singapore on designated flights, as part of various requirements under the scheme.<br/>