NEW DELHI: Air India Group has completed the operational integration and legal merger between Air India and Vistara, creating a full-service carrier.
The new full-service carrier will operate over 5,600 weekly flights and connect more than 90 domestic and international destinations with a fleet of 208 aircraft.
The airline will now be flying over 120,000 passengers every day and offers an extended worldwide connectivity to over 800 destinations through more than 75 code share and interline partners, Air India said in a press statement on Tuesday.
Preparation for the full-service merger commenced more than two years ago, and has seen the induction of more than 6,000 staff from Vistara into a new organisation structure, harmonisation of operating procedures across the four airlines, and alignment of over 140 IT systems.
More than 4,000 vendor contracts have been consolidated, 270,000 customer bookings migrated and 4.5 million Club Vistara frequent flyer accounts inducted to Air India’s recently-redesigned frequent flyer program, Maharaja Club. Consequent to the merger of Vistara and Air India, Singapore Airlines, which held a 49% share in Vistara, becomes a 25.1% shareholder in the resultant Air India group.
The merger of Air India and Vistara follows the merger of the Group’s low-cost airlines Air India Express and AIX Connect (formerly Air Asia India) on 1 October 2024. The unified Air India Group now operates over 8,300 weekly flights on 312 routes, connecting more than 100 domestic and international destinations with a fleet of 300 aircraft.
In a press statement, the company said that the consolidation of the four Tata-owned airlines into one Group operating one full-service and one low-cost airline is part of the ongoing, five-year transformation program, Vihaan.AI, which is focused on establishing Air India Group as a world-class global aviation company with an Indian heart.