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Mumbai/New Delhi, 11 November (HIST). The flight of Vistara, India's third largest foreign-owned airline company, will take its last flight to its destination on Monday. Vistara will join Tata-led Air India after today. With this, the number of full service airlines in the rapidly growing Indian aviation sector will reduce from five in the last 17 years to just one now.
Air India will operate all Vistara flights from November 12. Ticket booking for this will also be done through Air India website. Today is the last day to fly Vistara airline flights before it joins the Air India group. This merger will bring to an end another company jointly owned by a foreign airline formed after the liberalization of foreign direct investment (FDI) norms.
“As the plane soars, so do our dreams,” Vistara said in a statement posted on Twitter on Monday. Let's move towards a future where the sky is not the limit, but only the beginning, as the club merges with Vistara Air India Flying Returns to become the Maharaja Club. Access to your account with new sign-ups will be available from 11th November at 6pm IST till 12th November. Will be temporarily unavailable until 2 PM IST on , 2024. Thank you for your understanding and support as we combine both loyalty programs to give you the best of both worlds.
CCI had approved it in September 2023
The merger of Air India and Vistara was signed in November 2022. Indian regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI) had approved it in September 2023. After this merger, Air India Group has become the country's second largest domestic airline and the largest international airline in terms of market share after IndiGo. Upon completion of this merger, Air India will be the only Indian airline group to operate both full-service and low-cost passenger services.
There is resentment among Air India pilots
Ahead of the merger of Air India and Vistara, a section of Air India pilots are angry over the different age limits of retirement for pilots of the two Tata Group-owned airlines. The retirement age of pilots and other employees of Tata-owned Air India from the beginning of 2022 is 58 years. At the same time, in Tata Group's other airline Vistara, this limit is 60 years. In fact, there is growing resentment among a section of Air India pilots, as the management has not yet fixed a uniform retirement age for the unit formed after the merger.
Vistara was born in 2012
Singapore Airlines, which holds 49 per cent stake in foreign-owned Vistara, will have only 25.1 per cent stake in Air India after the merger. In 2012, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had allowed foreign airlines to buy up to 49 percent stake in a domestic airline. After this, Gulf region airline Etihad acquired 24 percent stake in the now defunct Jet Airways and on the other hand AirAsia India and Vistara were born.
Many Indian airlines sank
Vistara is also the only full-service airline to commence operations in the last 10 years. At least five FSCs were launched in India following the merger of full service carrier (FSC) Indian Airlines with Air India in 2007. However, with time Kingfisher and Air Sahara disappeared. Kingfisher closed down in 2012, while Air Sahara was acquired by Jet Airways. Its name was changed to Jetlite. It went bankrupt in 2019 along with Jet Airways.
It is noteworthy that Singapore Airlines will make an additional investment of Rs 3,194.5 crore in Tata Group-owned Air India after the merger of Vistara on November 12. This merger agreement was announced on November 29, 2022, which is going to be completed on November 11, 2024. Due to this merger, Singapore Airlines' stake in the expanded Air India will reduce to 25.1 percent. Air India (including Air India Express and Air Asia India) and Vistara have a total of 218 widebody and narrowbody aircraft, serving 38 international and 52 domestic flights.