The 68-year-old wait ended after the Tata Sons won the 18,000-crore bid for buying Air India. The Journey was long but was worth the wait. The Tata’s are to be credited to have started the first commercial airlines in India in 1932.
The Tata’s have been famous industrialists and an inspirational lot from the time of Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata.
How did Air India come into being?
Jehangir Ratnaji Dadabhoy Tata, the king of the Indian aviation industry, was the first person in India to get a pilot license, with the help of which he flew the first airline from Karachi to Mumbai’s Juhu air zone bearing 25kg of 4-anna airmail letters. Thus came into being the Tata airlines.
In 1946, due to the nationalization trend in the country, the government of India took over Tata Airlines and made it a public limited company. The airline was renamed, and “Air India” was the name nominated to be given to the airlines.
After the nationalization of the air service company, Air India became the cultural symbol of the country as the Government of India employed it to be its air support during official visits to other countries. The airline became a class more luxurious when it was once again commercialized.
The official mascot: The Maharaja, was created by Bobby Kooka and Umesh Rao in 1946. The mascot became famous for its colourful attires and to gel in with the dressing and culture of its destinations; it quickly became famous around the world as a symbol representing India.
The Logo: Air India’s Logo was the Centaur. After a few decades, it was altered into a red coloured flying swan with the Konark Chakra in orange inside it.
Air India was considered a luxury airline; we can see actual proofs of that when a baby elephant was given as a gift, a repayment for the design of ashtrays. In 1967, famous surrealist Salvador Dali designed the ashtray, which was used as a gift to the first-class passengers of the airline. Salvador Dali was gifted the baby elephant, flown from Bangalore to Geneva in the same airline.
The marketing strategies of Air India have a lot of credit for making eye-catching ads and some very famous film stars such as Zeenat Aman being a part of those ads.
The Journey of how Tata and Sons won back Air India
After the 1946 public limited company declaration of the Tata airlines, the government in 1953 completely took over the control and functioning of Air India. Even then, the Tata’s didn’t stop trying, and they went on with their dream of starting a commercial airline in India.
The nationalization policy was one of the biggest obstacles between Tata’s and their dream. But, with determination in 1995, they partnered with Singapore Airlines to launch a domestic airline in India. This attempt failed because the government came out with a regulation stating that foreign airlines could not hold stakes in their Indian counterparts.
The 1995 attempt failed, but it didn’t dampen the spirits of the Tata group. In 2001, under the able leadership of Ratan Tata, the Tata group once again collaborated with Singapore Airlines to bid for Air India[AI], which was now out for sale under the banner of privatization.
One of the main reasons for privatizing AI was that the then made public limited company was nothing more than a liability for the government. It was once again a failed bid, as Tata’s didn’t get the ownership of AI.
Coming to present, in 2013, Tata sons[TSL] with Malaysia’s Air Asia and Arun Bharati’s Telestra Trade place started a budget airline called AirAsia India. In 2016, TSL and S Ramadorai and Venkataraman bought Arun Bharati from Air Asia. In 2018, the government decided to sell a 76% stake in AI.
In 2019, TSL bought Venkataraman and Ramadorai’s shares in Air Asia and became the largest shareholder., but the Tata sons didn’t participate in the bidding. In November 2019, the government finally decided to let go of Air India by selling it ultimately.
In 2020, TSL and Ajay Singh filed an Expression of Interest [EOI], from which the Tata Sons bought a 33% stake in Air Asia from the Malaysian partner and became the highest stakeholder with 84%. On September 15, 2021, Tata sons and Ajay Singh led consortium sited their final bid, and on the glorious day of October 8, Tata Sons was declared the winning bidder of Air India.
The Journey was a big circle for the Tata Group, a journey full of takeoffs and landings, but with determination, innovation and a will to succeed got Air India back under the Tata Group.
