Wilson said, “Behind-the-scenes planning is underway. The regulatory and legal [approvals] are in process. The customer-facing elements will take some time [to change] and we are not rushing it”.
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For those who don’t know, Air India is a government-owned airline in service for 69 years. In January 2022, the airlines was reacquired by the Tata Group under a government-led disinvestment programme in. In the same year, the Tata group had announced a merger of Air India and Vistara.
Vistara began its operations in 2015. It is a 51:49 joint venture of Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines. But after the merger takes place, Singapore Airlines will get a 25.1% stake in the combined company.
The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) gave a nod to the merger, after India approved it in September last year. This will allow the two airlines to efficiently plan their routes.
Wilson further informed that they have been extremely clear that Vistara in the long term will become Air India and that Air India is about 92-years-old globally recognised airline.
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“Vistara has a very, very strong reputation and awareness in India, but not so much globally. A lot of the things that we are doing are modelled on what Vistara does, but we will eventually be collapsing the two. As I say, we won’t be rushing it. It will probably be [completed] some time next year,” Wilson explained further.
He also said, India can be home to at least three hubs and there are some point-to-point services. [The market] is probably a similar sort of size to [those of] Europe or North America. North India has a good east-west flow, and south India has a good Asia-Africa and even Australasia-Europe flow.
Vistara is already in the process of merging its staff with Air India.
