Air India-Vistara Merger Holds Steady Altitude

The planned combination of Air India and Vistara, according to Singapore Airlines on Tuesday, “remains on course” and is pending regulatory and competition authority approval in multiple jurisdictions. Following the merger, Singapore Airlines (SIA) will own a 25.1% share in Air India. At the moment, Singapore Airlines holds a 49 percent shareholding in Vistara, with the Tata Group holding the remaining 51 percent.

“With the Competition Commission of India approving the deal in September 2023, the planned merger of Air India and Vistara is still on track.

“It remains subject to foreign direct investment approval, as well as approvals from other regulators and competition authorities in several jurisdictions including those from India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Ministry of Civil Aviation, and National Company Law Tribunal, and the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore,” SIA Group stated in a release on Tuesday.

In addition to revealing the group’s financial results for the first half of the fiscal year 2023–24, SIA said that upon completion of the merger, it will receive a 25.1% share in an expanded Air India Group that will have a major presence in all important Indian airline market segments.

The Indian civil aviation market is experiencing rapid growth, and Air India, which was acquired by Tata Group in January 2022, has initiated a bold plan for revitalization and expansion.

SIA Group announced a 55.4% increase in net profit to SGD 1,441 million in the first half of the 2023–24 fiscal year from USD 927 million in the same period the previous year.

From SGD 8,417 million during the same period last year to SGD 9,162 million, its total revenue increased by 8.9%.

The group operated 202 aircraft as of September 30. Of those, 195 were passenger planes and 7 were freighters. Whereas Scoot operated 55 passenger aircraft, SIA operated 140 passenger aircraft and seven freighters.

The Group is ordering ninety-six aircraft.

According to SIA, there was a strong demand for air travel throughout the Northern Summer travel season. This was primarily due to the increase in passenger traffic to North Asia following the complete reopening of China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Japan, and Taiwan.

In the first half of the current fiscal year, SIA and budget airline Scoot carried 17.4 million passengers, up 52.3% from the previous year. The volume of passengers increased by 38% over the previous year.

“SIA will increase service to destinations throughout its network during the Northern Summer 2024 operating season, which runs from March 31, 2024, to October 26, 2024. This entails bringing back direct flights between Singapore and Barcelona, deploying widebody Airbus A350-900 medium-haul aircraft to Cairns and Male, and restoring Airbus A380 services to Frankfurt.

“Flight frequencies will be raised at various points to either match or surpass pre-pandemic levels. These include Dubai (the United Arab Emirates), Tokyo-Haneda (Japan), Ahmedabad (India), Beijing and Shanghai (China), Copenhagen (Denmark), Da Nang (Vietnam), Darwin, Melbourne, and Perth (Australia), and Seattle and Houston (the United States of America), according to the press release.

The demand for air freight remained weak, according to SIA, because of inventory overhang and macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges. It continued, saying that lower demand and more competition also played a part in the decline in cargo yields, which dropped by 46.2% from the previous year.