Air India: Encyclopedia - Air India

Air India

Air India (Hindi: एअर इंडिया) is the national flag carrier airline of India with a network of passenger and cargo services worldwide. It is one of the two state-owned airlines in the country, the other being Indian Airlines. Its main base is Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai, with hubs at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi and Chennai International Airport. The airline connects 44 destinations around the world, including 12 gateways in India.

Air India - History

Air India traces its history back to October 15, 1932 when its founder, J. R. D. Tata flew a single engined De Havilland Puss Moth registered VT-ADN carrying air mail (postal mail of Imperial Airways) from Karachi's Drigh Road Aerodrome to Bombay's Juhu Airstrip via Ahmedabad. The aircraft continued to Madras via Bellary piloted by a Royal Air Force pilot Neville Vincent. That same year, the airline was formally established as Tata Airlines, a division of Tata Sons Ltd. (now Tata Group). Following the end of World War II, regular commercial service was restored in India and Tata Airlines became a public limited company on 29 July 1946 under the name Air India.

1948 was a significant year in the history of the airline when 49% of it was acquired by the Government of India, with an option to purchase an additional 2% at any time. In return, the airline was granted status to operate international services from India as the designated flag carrier under the name Air India International. On June 8, 1948 a Lockheed Constellation L-749A named Malabar Princess and registered VT-CQP took off from Bombay bound for London via Cairo and Geneva. This marked the airline's first longhaul international flight, soon followed by service to Nairobi via Aden.

On 1 August 1953, the Government of India exercised its option to purchase a majority stake in the carrier and Air India International Limited was born as one of the fruits of the Air Corporations Act that nationalised the air transportation industry. At the same time all domestic services were transferred to Indian Airlines. In 1954, the airline took delivery of its first L-1049 Super Constellations and inaugurated services to Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Air India International entered the jet age in 1960 when its first Boeing 707, named Nandadevi and registered VT-DJJ, was delivered. Jet services to New York via London were inaugurated that same year. On June 8, 1962 the airline's name was officially truncated to its current form of Air India. On June 11, 1962 Air India became the world's first all-jet airline.

In 1970, Air India moved its offices into its own custom built skyscraper in downtown Bombay. The next year, the airline took delivery of its first Boeing 747-200 named Emperor Ashoka and registered VT-EBD. This coincided with the introduction of the 'Palace In The Sky' livery and branding. A distinctive feature of this livery is the paintwork around each aircraft window, in the cusped arch style of windows in Mughal palaces.

In 1986 Air India took delivery of Airbus A310s. The airline is the largest operator of this type in passenger service. In 1988, Air India also took delivery of two Boeing 747-300s in mixed passenger-cargo configuration.

In 1989, to supplant its "Flying Palace" livery, Air India introduced a new livery that was mostly white but had a golden sun on a red tail. Only applied to around a half of Air India's fleet, the new livery failed to "take off" as the Indian flying public raised a hue and a cry about the phasing out of the classic colours. The new livery was dropped after two years and the old scheme was re-introduced. Since then, Air India has been hesitant to radically change the paint scheme, instead opting for minor updates and facelifts.

In 1993, Air India took delivery of the new flagship of its fleet when the first Boeing 747-400 named Konark and registered VT-ESM made history by operating the first ever nonstop flight between New York and Delhi.

In 1994 the airline was registered as Air India Ltd. In 1996, the airline inaugurated service to its second US gateway at Chicago’s O'Hare International Airport. In 1999, the airline opened its dedicated Terminal 2-C at the newly renamed Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai.

The 21st century has seen Air India introduce new services to Shanghai in China, as well as two new US gateways at Newark Liberty International Airport and LAX.

Air-India has registered a profit of Rs 133.85 crores (Approx USD 30 million) in the financial year ending March 31, 2003, after taking into account the deferred tax benefit. In the year 2002, it recorded a net profit of Rs 15.44 crores. Air-India earned a total revenue of Rs 5658 crores (Approx USD 1.26 billion) in 2002-03 as against Rs 5017 crores (Approx USD 1.1 billion) in the previous year. The airline has ambitious plans to expand its network and acquire new aircraft. The newly elected Government of India has appointed Mr.Praful Patel, as the Minister for Civil Aviation who plans to make the airline "A Maharaja of the Skies ".

In March 2004, Air India started non-stop flights from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport to London, Heathrow, making it the 3rd station from India (after Mumbai and Delhi). In December 2004, Air India leased three Boeing 777-222ER aircraft from United Airlines. With these three new B777s, Air India was able to introduce three new routes: Delhi-Frankfurt-Los Angeles, Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham-Toronto, and Delhi-Dhaka-Kolkata-London.

Furthermore, in the course of 2005, Air India announced interest of commencing service linking Delhi and Mumbai to Houston, Washington, DC, and San Francisco. However, the authorities of Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport have attempted to lure the airline to form its first direct air link to India. The addition of any new U.S. services have yet to be announced.

Air India - Incidents and Accidents

Since 1970, Air India has suffered the following events:

• Air India Flight 855 crashed into the Arabian Sea after takeoff from Sahar International Airport (now Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport) in Bombay (now Mumbai) on 1 January 1978, killing everyone on board (213 - 190 passengers, 23 crew).
• On 21 June 1982 a Boeing 707 crashed at Bombay airport while trying to land in a heavy rainstorm. 2 crew and 15 passengers were killed.
• Air India Flight 182 -Kanishka was blown up by Sikh terrorists on 23 June 1985. The flight was on the first leg on its Montreal-London-Delhi-Bombay (Mumbai) flight when it exploded off the coast of Ireland. The plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. All 307 passengers and 22 crew on board died. After this incident Air-India suspended all services to Canada,which resumed after 20 years in 2005.
• On 19 December 2005 a Boeing 747-400 Air India Flight 136 with 273 passengers and crew members aboard made an emergency landing at LAX after blowing a tire upon taking off from the airport.

Air India - Passenger Operations

Air India has 44 world-wide destinations. It also has code-sharing agreements with many international airlines to expand coverage. The airline carried 3.39 million passengers during the financial year ending March 2003 and achieved a load factor of 71.6 per cent, substantially higher than the 66 per cent load factor recorded in the preceding year. The airline has received a 4 star rating for cabin safety procedures from skytrax airline quality review. Three classes of seats are offered - First class, Executive class and Economy class. Flat bed seats are offered for first class passengers. The airline also offers a frequent flyer programme alone and in collaboration with many of its alliances. The airline also offers luxury lounges in its ground terminals for its First and Executive class travellers in select destinations within India. Air-India has duty free sale on board its flights effective June 1, 2003 named 'sky bazaar', meaning Market in the sky.

Air India - Cargo Operations

In 1954, Air-India started its freighter operations with a Douglas DC-3 Dakota aircraft, giving Air-India the distinction of being the first Asian airline to operate freighters. The airline operates regular cargo flights to many destinations of the world. The airline also has ground truck-transportation arrangements on select destinations.

A member of IATA, Air-India carries all types of cargo including dangerous goods (hazardous materials) and live animals, provided such shipments are tendered according to IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations and IATA Live Animals Regulations, respectively.

At the warehouse in Mumbai, Air India has developed an indigenous system of inventory management for cargo handling of import/export functions. This takes care of the entire management of cargo, supports Electronic Data Interface (EDI) messages with Indian Customs and replaces to a great extent existing paper correspondence between Customs, Airlines, and the custodians. This also replaces manual handling and binning of cargo at the warehouse in Mumbai by Air India.

Air India - Fleet

As of November 2005, Air India's fleet consists of the following 41 aircraft:

• 21 Airbus A310-300
• 2 Boeing 747-200
• 2 Boeing 747-300
• 13 Boeing 747-400
• 3 Boeing 777-200

The Air India Board has recently approved an acquisition plan at its meeting held in Mumbai on April 26, 2005. The acquisition plan envisaged procurement of the folowing 68 aircraft:

• 18 Boeing 737-800 aircraft for Air India's subsidiary Air India Charters Ltd. under whose umbrella the low cost airline Air India Express would be run.

• 8 Boeing 777-200 LR Medium Capacity Ultra Long Range aircraft in three-class configuration (including three options);

• 15 Boeing 777-300 ER Medium Capacity Long Range-350 seater, in three-class configuration (including five options); and

• 20 Boeing 787-8 Medium Capacity Long Range-250 seater aircraft in two class configuration (including seven options).

Total cost of this acquisition is estimated to be 35000 crores INR (7.5 billion USD). On 15 December, 2005 the Indian Government board approved the purchase of 68 jets from Boeing Corporation. Price negotiations resulted in a $225 million rebate for Air India. The Boeing 777's will have GE-90 engines and the Boeing 787 will have Genx engines. Boeing will set up MRO along with training facilities. The aircafts will start arriving from 2006 and will go until 2011.

Air India - Logo and Mascot

As it symbolises movement and speed, the Centaur, a stylised version of Sagittarius, was selected as Air-India's logo. The choice of a constellation was also intended as an allusion to the airline's original long distance routes with Lockheed Constellation aircraft.

Air India's mascot, the Maharaja, is a turban clad king with over-sized moustache and a royal dress. "He may look like royalty, but he isn't royal" - these are the words of Bobby Kooka, the man who conceived the Maharajah. This figure first made his appearance in Air-India in 1946, when Bobby Kooka as Air-India's Commercial Director and Umesh Rao, an artist with J.Walter Thompson Ltd., Mumbai, together created the Maharajah.

Air India - Women Pilots

There are 17 women pilots on Air India's rolls, including five trainee pilots. On the occasion of the World Women's Day, March 3rd 2004, the airline operated an "All women Flight" from Mumbai to Singapore. Capt. Rashmi Miranda, who became Air-India's first woman Commander in November 2003 and Capt. Kshmata Bajpai, piloted the flight, an Airbus A310 aircraft. The flight despatch activities relating to this flight was also coordinated by a woman Flight Despatcher, Ms Vasanti Kolnad. The Safety Audit on board was also conducted by another woman, Ms Harpreet D. Singh.

Air India - Awards and Recognition

• The Airline entered the Guinness Book of World Records - The largest evacuation by a civil airliner, involving evacuation of over 111,000 people from Amman to Mumbai - a distance of 4,117 km, by operating 488 flights in association with Indian Airlines, during August 13 - October 11, 1990, lasting a total of 59 days.The operation was carried out during Persian Gulf War in 1990 to evacuate Indian expatriates from the region .
• The airline received The Mercury Award for the years 1994 and 2003, from the International Flight Catering Association, for finest in-flight catering services.
• Air India's security department became the first aviation security organisation in the world to acquire ISO 9002-1994 certification(January 31, 2001).
• The Department of Engineering, Air India, has obtained the ISO 9002 for its Engineering facilities for meeting international standards.

Air India - Trivia

• The Indian Prime Minister's flight operated by Air India is called AI 001.

See also

• Russell Peters
• Air India destinations
• Air-India Express
• List of commercial airlines in India

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Air India", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki