Can Merger Save Indias State Airlines?
Besieged by privately-owned new entrants, on both the domestic and international fronts, Air India and Indian are combining in hopes of creating a more powerful presence. By Shruti Pandit Mumbai Air Transport World, October 2007, p.48 THOUGH OPERATING IN ONE OF the fastest-growing airline markets in the world, Air India and Indian have for some years now been in terminal decline. The former is a classic example of a flag carrier plagued by the ills of a bloated workforce and an aging fleet, the latter a largely domestic operation that has ceded market steadily to nimbler privately owned rivals for the past decade. In an attempt to breathe life into them, the Indian government, which owns and operates the airlines through its bureaucrat-appointees and is largely responsible for many of their problems in the first place, decided this year to merge the two. A new enterprise, National Aviation Company of India, which will operate the merged carrier to be called Air India was incorporated i
