Air India's history as Tata pours in money to revive the airline

Air India is carving out an ambitious renaissance under the Tata Group conglomerate, which regained control earlier this year after the airline was nationalised nearly seven decades ago.

The airline is close to placing landmark orders for as many as 500 jetliners potentially worth over $100 billion at list prices from both Airbus and Boeing, Reuters reported over the weekend, citing industry sources.

The report came days after Tata announced the merger of Air India with Vistara, a joint venture with Singapore Airlines, to cement itself as the country's largest international carrier and second largest in the domestic market after IndiGo.

Read | Air India close to finalise deal of 50 Boeing 737 MAX planes for Air India Express

The merged Air India entity will have 218 planes and fly to 52 domestic and 38 international destinations.

Here is Air India's timeline that includes financial troubles, reputation drop and Tata's plans to restore it.

1932

Entrepreneur JRD Tata, the first Indian to receive a commercial pilot's license, forms the airline, India's first.

1946

Tata Airlines is converted into a public entity and renamed Air-India. The Maharajah mascot also makes his first appearance.

1953

Air India is nationalised and splits into a domestic airline and an international carrier.

April 2005

Air India launches low-cost carrier Air India Express.

April 2007

National carriers Air India and Indian Airlines are merged into a single airline.

July 2009

The airline appoints State Bank of India to prepare a roadmap for recovery after years of losses under state control and emergence of new players.

April 2012

India approves a $5.8 billion bailout for Air India, which was to be received by 2020.

March 2018

India plans to sell a controlling stake, along with roughly $5.1 billion of the carrier's debt.

June 2018

India shelves a plan to sell a 76% stake due to lack of interest from bidders.

December 2019

India decides to sell 100% of its stake after failing to find takers for its offer of 76% and full debt.

October 2020

The government gets two bids after extending the 2020 deadline several times.

September 2021

India's finance ministry says Air India has received financial bids from Tata Sons and Ajay Singh, promoter of budget airline SpiceJet.

October 2021

India government announces Tata Sons as the winning bidder for its 100% stake in Air India, after the conglomerate bid Rs 17,994 crore.

January 2022

Tata regains control of Air India

April 2022

Air India proposes to buy the entire equity share capital of low cost carrier AirAsia India, which Tata has a majority stake in and operates with Malaysia's AirAsia X Bhd

May 2022

Tata announces appointment of Campbell Wilson, the head of Singapore Airlines' budget carrier Scoot, as Air India's CEO, weeks after appointing N. Chandrasekaran as chairman.

October

Singapore Airlines says it is in talks with Tata about a potential merger of Vistara, their joint venture airline, with Air India

November 2022

AirAsia sells its stake in AirAsia India to Air India.

November 2022

Tata says it is merging Air India with Vistara, its joint venture with Singapore Airlines, with Tata holding 74.9 per cent of the combined entity and the latter owning the rest.