As Tata Group is back in Air India cockpit, here's a look at the airline's long journey

Tata Sons, via a wholly-owned subsidiary Talace Pvt Ltd, has won the bid for acquiring national carrier Air India, the Aviation Ministry & DIPAM Secretary announced on Friday at a cabinet briefing. The Airline has been finally brought back to its fold after attempts by successive governments to privatize the bleeding national carrier for over two decades.

While the homecoming of Air India will be a glorious moment for the 153-year-old conglomerate, it remains to be seen how it would map the future of its airlines business considering the fact that the aviation industry was crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic is yet to recover from the deadly blows.

Air India's journey over the years

At the age of fifteen, J.R.D. Tata in France had decided to become a pilot and build a career in aviation. A decade later, when the Aero Club of India gave him his flying license, it had No. 1 written on it, indicating that he was the first Indian to have qualified to become a pilot.

The first known commercial civil aviation flight in India took place on 18th February 1911 when Henri Piquet flew a Humber biplane from a polo ground in Allahabad carrying mail across the Yamuna to Naini.

After the Wright brothers invented the aeroplane in 1903, in the next decade and a half, India took baby steps in the development of aviation-related infrastructure. This included the commencement of the first air route between London, Karachi, and Delhi in 1912 by Imperial Airways (now British Airways). Construction of civil airports in Calcutta, Allahabad, and Bombay took place in 1924 and the establishment of the Department of Civil Aviation happened in 1927.

In 1929, J.R.D. Tata was approached by Nevill Vintcent, a retired Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot, with a proposal to start air services between Karachi and Bombay.

For the next two years, the Tatas tried to persuade the British government to subsidize the fledgling aviation business. They requested the assistance of just Rs. 75,000 for the first two years. But the government declined. When the Tatas decided to donate a free air service to the government, the proposal was instantly accepted.

No airline in the world operated without government support. But the Tatas were willing to accept the financial risk associated with the new venture. Tata Airlines was formed in April 1932.

The story of Indian commercial civil aviation began at 6.30 a.m. on 15th October 1932 when J.R.D. Tata took off on his first official Tata Airlines flight from Karachi’s Drigh Road aerodrome. He landed ahead of schedule at Bombay’s Juhu airstrip by 1.50 p.m.

Despite the infrastructure difficulties, the performance of Tata Airlines was remarkable. It completed its first year of service with 100% punctuality, even during the difficult monsoon months when the perilous Western Ghats made such journeys dangerous. Tata Airlines continued to perform remarkably well. On completion of five years, its profits had risen from Rs.66,000 to Rs. 6 lakh, and it had maintained punctuality at 99.4%.

In 1938, Bobby Kooka, among the first employees at the company, designed the iconic ‘Maharaja’ (monarch) as the brand identity of Tata Airlines. In 1946, Tata Airlines, until then a division of Tata Sons, went public by becoming a joint-stock company called Air India Ltd.

What happened after Independence? 

In 1953, the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru-led Congress government passed the Air Corporations Act. As a result, all existing airlines, including Air India and Air India International, were nationalized. Air India and Indian Airlines were formed as independent public-sector enterprises catering to international and domestic services respectively.

Nationalization was hotly debated since Independence. J.R.D. Tata opposed it on several platforms but wasn’t invited by the government to present his views. Communications Minister Jagjivan Ram, who supervised modalities of nationalization, did consult J.R.D. Tata but that was to discuss the compensation to be given to companies getting nationalized. J.R.D. Tata was disheartened.

At a luncheon meeting with Prime Minister Nehru in November 1952, JRD Tata expressed his anguish that the government had intentionally treated the Tatas shabbily and that it was a planned conspiracy to suppress private civil aviation. J.R.D. Tata expressed his disappointment at the government’s decision to proceed with such a major step without any consultation with the Tatas, who were pioneers in Indian civil aviation.

J.R.D. Tata emphasized his conviction that nationalization would not result in an efficient and self-supporting air transport system. He had said, "Unless the greatest attention continues to be paid to the high standards of training and discipline amongst flying and ground crews, the resulting deterioration might destroy the good name of Indian civil aviation."

(With Agency Inputs)