Vistara, Air India Merger Slated To Complete By End Of 2025

Vistara chief executive officer (CEO) Vinod Kannan said on Monday that the merger of Vistara and Air India will be completed next year, with legal approvals being gained by the first half of this year.

“We believe all the approvals from a legal perspective should come through sometime in the first half of this year, between March to October of 2024… we are looking towards this year or early next year as the operational merger, or it could stretch to the middle of next year or 2025, subject to relevant approvals, subject to approvals from authorities, the legal merger, or the legal approval should come through soon and then we operationalize it,” Vinod Kannan said.

As per the Competition Commission of India (CCI)-approved merger deal, Vistara-owner Tata Singapore Airlines Limited (SIA) will gain a 5.1% stake in Air India by investing Rs. 2059 crore.

Speaking on the sidelines of the airline after completing nine years of flying in the Indian skies, Kannan said, “Some of the discussions have mostly been on the operational side; however, not much has happened on the commercial side. Because despite the fact that we have CCI, there are still other jurisdictions where we don’t have approvals. We want to make sure that we get all those approvals, and then we can start talking about network, pricing, and loyalty programmes.”

According to Kannan, all the employees who work on 325 Vistara flights will continue with their jobs post-merger, adding that Vistara”s fleet size now stands at 67 with the addition of 17 new member flights through the year 2023. “We hope that by the time we have legal approvals for the merger, we can start the movement of staff,” he said.

Speaking on the airline’s developments in 2023, Kannan said that “in December 2023, versus December 2022, we’ve added almost 60% more flights in terms of departures. But in terms of capacity, we’ve added almost more than 25% year-on-year.”