Air India awaits formal merger order

Aug. 22: Air India chairman and managing director (CMD) V. Thulasidas on Wednesday said that the order of the corporate affairs ministry giving the go-ahead for the merger of Air India and Indian is expected very soon and that the "legal process for the merger is now coming to an end".
Speaking to reporters at the civil aviation ministry on Wednesday after a "review meeting", the Air India CMD said, "Once we get a copy of the formal order from the corporate affairs ministry, the legal process will end. We have been given to understand that we will receive the orders any time now."
"We are absolutely ready to start flights of the merged entity. The merged airline will have a strength of 112 aircraft to start with and the employee strength will be 34,000," Mr. Thulasidas said.
Both Air India and Indian have already placed orders from Boeing (68 aircraft) and Airbus (43 aircraft) respectively. Apart from these orders, Air India has already begun the process of evaluating the number of additional aircraft which should be procured in future. "We are working it out and we will forward the figures to the ministry," Mr Thulasidas said.
The Air India CMD said that various committees comprising officials of the two airlines are monitoring the proposed integration in terms of route rationalisation, human resources, operations, information technology, finance, engineering and administration.
Apart from the merged entity, which will be called Air India, there will also be the low cost carrier named Air India Express and an Air India cargo airline as well.