- Tata has announced that they will be putting an end to Vistara flights after the merger with Air India.
- After the merger led by Tata, the Vistara brand of flights will fall under Air India Airlines.
- “The intention is to have one full-service airline and one low-cost airline in the group. The full-service airline will be an amalgam of Air India and Vistara,” the CEO and MD of Air India said.
- In November 2022, Singapore Airlines and Tata Group announced a merger between Air India and Vistara, with Singapore Airlines holding 25.1% of the merged entity.
- “Vistara has a very strong recognition in the Indian market but if you look outside the Indian market, clearly Air India is much more recognised and has a 90-year history- He said.
Tata has announced that they will be putting an end to Vistara flights after the merger with Air India, which was recently bought out by the company, making it a private airline once again. Air India chief Campbell Wilson said the full-service carrier post the merger of Vistara will be known as Air India. Vistara, which is deemed one of the most premier airlines in India, will shortly discontinue all its flights after Tata Group’s merger with Air India. After the merger led by Tata, the Vistara brand of flights will fall under Air India Airlines.
While the resultant full-service carrier will be known as Air India, Wilson emphasised that efforts will be made to retain some of the “Vistara heritage in that new manifestation”. This comes after Tata bought out Air India in the midst of constant losses of the airlines, with hopes to revamp its services as a private entity.
Since taking over the loss-making Air India in January last year, Tata Group has been working on transforming the airline group and has announced that Vistara will be merged with itself, while AIX Connect, earlier known as AirAsia India, is getting integrated with Air India Express.
“The intention is to have one full-service airline and one low-cost airline in the group. The full-service airline will be an amalgam of Air India and Vistara,” Wilson said. During a virtual media interaction, the CEO and MD of Air India also said there is a desire to carry forward the heritage of both Air India and Vistara, and work is going through on the form.
“Vistara has a very strong recognition in the Indian market but if you look outside the Indian market, clearly Air India is much more recognised and has a 90-year history. The future full-service carrier will be called Air India but we would like to retain and celebrate some of the Vistara heritage in that new manifestation,” Wilson said.
Singapore Airlines is set to acquire a 25.1 percent stake in Air India after Tata Group announced the merger of Vistara with the formerly government airline. In November 2022, Singapore Airlines and Tata Group announced a merger between Air India and Vistara, with Singapore Airlines holding 25.1% of the merged entity. The merger is expected to be completed by March 2024.
Vistara became the second-largest domestic airline in India in July 2022 and retained the title for six months. In January, Air India overtook Vistara as the second-largest airline with a market share of 9.2%. “We expect many of the systems and practices will be those of Vistara…being a younger privatized airline that has been able to imbibe the learnings it brings from its other shareholders. A lot of transformation that we have been doing at Air India is with a view to putting us on a similar platform as Vistara,” Wilson said
