Tata Sons Likely To Acquire AI By August End

The Tata Group of Companies, which is already into the airline business with its domestic carrier Vistara, is likely to make a formal bid to acquire the government –run Air India. The central government has put the airline on the block in the wake of the huge losses it suffered in the last few years. Tata Group is the sole bidder for Air India since last month.

According to information, the company had already begun the process and is likely to close the bid by the end of August. There is speculation that Tata has plans to merge its existing stake in AirAsia with Air India and make it a single entity.

However, there is no official confirmation about the take-over but the last date for bidding is August 31. The central government had extended the June deadline for submission of Express of Intent (EoI) in view of Covid-19 but this time, it has no plans of extending the deadline.

48 Pilots sacked overnight

Air India has been in financial crisis even before the pandemic and has been on talks regarding ‘strategic sales’ under Modi’s disinvestment policy. The pandemic has further pushed it into trouble and in a surprise move, the national carrier had sacked 48 pilots overnight even while some of them were still flying. A letter to this effect was issued all of a sudden on August 14 night.

Reports said that all those had resigned before and withdrew their resignations. The authorities accepted the withdrawal of resignation then. The letter also said that the current operations were just a fraction of pre-Covid level and that it is unlikely to increase the services in the near future. It also stated that the company was incurring huge losses and does not have the ability to pay.

It may be recalled that the sacking of 48 pilots comes after the authorities, on social media, assured that unlike other carriers which laid off a large number of employees, no employee of Air India would be laid off. The assurance also mentioned that a meeting of the Ministry of Civil Aviation was held on the rationalisation of staff cost before taking the decision not to lay off employees.