Tata airlines complete harmonising operating process ahead of merger

Vistara, a joint venture between Tata Group (51 per cent) and Singapore Airlines (49 per cent), is being integrated into Air India to create a single full-service carrier

Air India (A-I) on Monday announced completion of harmonizing operating procedures across key functions, including alignment of supporting manuals, at the four Tata Group airlines. This is a crucial step in the ongoing merger process.

Vistara, a joint venture between Tata Group (51 per cent) and Singapore Airlines (49 per cent), is being integrated into A-I to create a single, full-service carrier. Concurrently, A-I's subsidiaries AIX Connect and Air India Express are merging to form a unified low-cost airline.

"Over the last 18 months, a team of more than 100 members have worked to align on the best practices and adopt common operating procedures. The result of this will be two separate manuals for the full-service carrier and the low-cost carrier," A-I said.

Air India group had earlier stated that it plans to complete the entire merger process by the end of this year.

Campbell Wilson, chief executive officer & managing director of A-I, said: “This (harmonisation) is an important milestone in the merger of the Tata Group airlines and we are grateful for the support received from the Ministry of Civil Aviation in terms of timely clearances for the merger process. We are also grateful to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for their continuous guidance, systematic review and approval of the harmonized operating manuals.”

"The live tracker created by the Flight Standards Directorate of DGCA with a dedicated team for continuous monitoring of the progress of the harmonisation process has been instrumental in achieving the challenging task in a time-bound manner,” he added.

A-I and group companies are initiating the necessary crew training to act on the harmonized processes, which will be another step in the direction of building the new Air India and Air India Express.