Back to the future: Air India looks to take off with mega-purchase
One of India's biggest and oldest conglomerates is returning to its roots with a multi-billion-dollar bet on the country's growing middle class and its demand for air travel. Air India was for many years under state ownership, a byword for underinvestment, crippling losses, and inefficiency. Now back in the hands of its original private owners, it announced combined purchases of 470 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing on Tuesday, which together form one of the largest orders in aviation history. The announcement comes a year after tea-to-software conglomerate Tata Group re-acquired the loss-making airline, founded by globetrotting Franco-Indian industrialist JRD Tata, who piloted its maiden flight in 1932. Reports say he described its post-Independence nationalisation as the saddest day of his life, frequently lamenting the loss. And it has haemorrhaged money in recent years, with successive Indian governments spending nearly $15b to prop it up from 2009 until Tata bought it back in a $2.4b deal a year ago. "Welcome back, Air India," Tata's patriarch chairman emeritus Ratan Tata celebrated after completing the purchase. It last bought new aircraft in 2006, but now its new old owners are looking to restore its image as the "Maharaja of the Skies", while at the same time taking on the emergent carriers of recent decades -- Emirates, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines, whose hub and spoke models have given them an outsize share of intercontinental travel. Tuesday's announcements amounted to "not just the largest order ever made by an Indian airline, it is one of the largest single aircraft orders by any airline, anywhere, ever", CEO Campbell Wilson said in a message to staff, calling it a "major milestone... in the journey of restoring this airline to greatness". Shakti Lumba, former head of operations at IndiGo, which long ago replaced Air India as the country's largest domestic airline, told AFP that the Tata group "can build a world-class global brand".<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2023-02-15/star/back-to-the-future-air-india-looks-to-take-off-with-mega-purchase
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/logo.png
Back to the future: Air India looks to take off with mega-purchase
One of India's biggest and oldest conglomerates is returning to its roots with a multi-billion-dollar bet on the country's growing middle class and its demand for air travel. Air India was for many years under state ownership, a byword for underinvestment, crippling losses, and inefficiency. Now back in the hands of its original private owners, it announced combined purchases of 470 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing on Tuesday, which together form one of the largest orders in aviation history. The announcement comes a year after tea-to-software conglomerate Tata Group re-acquired the loss-making airline, founded by globetrotting Franco-Indian industrialist JRD Tata, who piloted its maiden flight in 1932. Reports say he described its post-Independence nationalisation as the saddest day of his life, frequently lamenting the loss. And it has haemorrhaged money in recent years, with successive Indian governments spending nearly $15b to prop it up from 2009 until Tata bought it back in a $2.4b deal a year ago. "Welcome back, Air India," Tata's patriarch chairman emeritus Ratan Tata celebrated after completing the purchase. It last bought new aircraft in 2006, but now its new old owners are looking to restore its image as the "Maharaja of the Skies", while at the same time taking on the emergent carriers of recent decades -- Emirates, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines, whose hub and spoke models have given them an outsize share of intercontinental travel. Tuesday's announcements amounted to "not just the largest order ever made by an Indian airline, it is one of the largest single aircraft orders by any airline, anywhere, ever", CEO Campbell Wilson said in a message to staff, calling it a "major milestone... in the journey of restoring this airline to greatness". Shakti Lumba, former head of operations at IndiGo, which long ago replaced Air India as the country's largest domestic airline, told AFP that the Tata group "can build a world-class global brand".<br/>
