AI-Vistara: Vistara’s farewell with final flight to Singapore

New Delhi| After operating for almost 10 years, full service provider Vistara made its last flight from the national capital to Singapore on Tuesday morning, after which operations stopped. Vistara, a joint venture between Tata and Singapore Airlines, has now merged with Air India, creating an expanded entity that is now the country’s largest international carrier and second largest domestic carrier.

The flight from Delhi to Singapore was UK115 Vistara’s final flight with the code ‘UK’, while UK986 from Mumbai to Delhi was Vistara’s final domestic flight. Starting a new chapter in India’s fast-growing civil aviation sector, the expanded post-merger Air India unit operated its first flight from Doha to Mumbai with the code ‘AI2286’.

The first flight of the integrated unit in the domestic sector, AI2984, left Mumbai for Delhi. All four flights landed at their respective destinations early Tuesday morning, according to information available on flight tracking website Flightradar24.com. According to an official, the two airlines have merged, Air India boarding passes are being issued to passengers and Vistara’s check-in counters at airports have become Air India’s.

The code ‘AI2XXX’ is being used for Vistara flights operated by Air India after the merger, to help passengers identify the Vistara flight at the time of booking. On Monday, an official reported that the integrated unit would operate services on 103 domestic and 71 international routes. Singapore Airlines will have a 25.1 per cent stake in the integrated entity following the merger first announced in November 2022, operating over 5,500 weekly flights on local and international routes.

A formal announcement about the merger is expected today itself. The Tata Group has led the wave of integration in the Indian aviation sector by undertaking two major mergers in less than two months – AIX Connect was amalgamated with Air India Express on 1 October and Vistara is now merged with Air India.

Air India, Vistara and AIX Connect accounted for slightly more than 29 per cent of the domestic market in September, according to the latest official figures. In total, the Air India Group has an operational fleet of 298 aircraft – Air India has around 208 and Air India Express has around 90 aircraft.