India’s third largest airline Vistara will fly its last flight today i.e. on 11 November. From 12 November, all Vistara flights will be operated by Air India. Ticket booking for this will also be done through Air India’s website. Now Air India will be the only Indian airline group to operate both full-service and low-cost passenger services. With this merger, the number of full-service carriers in the Indian aviation sector will decrease from five to one in a period of just 17 years.
After this merger, Vistara’s 6500 staff, 70 aircraft and all its domestic and international flights started operating under the banner of Air India. Now when the pages of the history of the airline industry are turned, Vistara will definitely be mentioned. This airline company was started in 2013 as a joint venture of Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines.
Vistara took its first flight in 2015
Vistara Airlines started its first domestic flight from Delhi to Mumbai on 5 January 2015 and now it is expected that its last flight will also be on this route. Vistara started its international service on 6 August 2019 with a flight from Delhi to Singapore. The airlines used to serve more than 50,000 passengers through about 350 flights every day but after the announcement of its merger with Air India in 2022, Vistara will now be operated by Air India from November 12.
The company has done complete planning
Vistara has made all preparations to minimize the problems of passengers expected after the merger. Tickets have been updated and for a few days, passengers who have bought tickets in the name of Vistara will get boarding passes with AI-2 code but all their flights will be operated under Air India. Air India staff will be available to assist passengers, especially at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and other major airports so that passengers do not face problems like re-scheduling, flight delays.
They will not get this facility
The logo of Vistara’s aircraft will also be gradually changed to Air India’s logo. Vistara’s aircraft codes will be under Air India from November 12 and Vistara’s brand will gradually disappear. After the merger, Vistara passengers will be served from Air India’s counters. However, additional facilities like lounges will not be available to Vistara passengers for now.
These companies have been shut down
In the last 17 years, about 5 full service airlines in India have shut down. After the departure of Kingfisher and Air Sahara, Vistara started operating as a full carrier airline in 2015. While Kingfisher collapsed in 2012 itself, Air Sahara was bought by Jet Airways and started flights under the name of Jetlite. Now Jet Airways is also closed since 2019. After providing services for 25 years, Jet Airways has now completely collapsed.