Air india

In 2000, Air India introduced services to Shanghai and to its third US gateway at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark.In May 2004, Air India launched a wholly owned low cost airline called Air-India Express. Air India Express connecting cities in India with the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the Subcontinent. In 2004 Air India launched flights to its fourth US gateway at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles (which has since been terminated) and expanded its international routes to include flights from Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bangalore and Hyderabad. On 1 December 2009, Air India introduced services to its fifth US gateway at Washington Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., accessed via a stopover at JFK Airport in New York City. This service has been terminated. Re-privatisation plans In 2001, Air India was put up for sale by the then NDA government.[10] One of the bids was by a consortium of Tata Group-Singapore Airlines. However the re-privatisation plans were shelved after Singapore Airlines pulled out and the global economy slumped.[11] Merger with Indian Airlines In 2007, the Government of India announced that Air India would be merged with Indian Airlines. As part of the merger process, a new company called the National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL) was established, into which both Air India (along with Air India Express) and Indian Airlines (along with Alliance Air) will be merged. On 27 February 2011, Air India and Indian Airlines merged along with their subsidiaries to form Air India Limited. Financial crisis Around 20062007, the airlines began showing signs of financial distress. The combined losses for Air India and Indian in 2006-07 were Indian Rupee symbol.svg 770 crores (Indian Rupee symbol.svg 7.7 billion). After the merger of the airlines, this went up to Indian Rupee symbol.svg 7,200 crores (Indian Rupee symbol.svg 72 billion) by March 2009.[12] This was followed by restructuring plans which are still in progress.[13] In July 2009, SBI Capital Markets Ltd was appointed to prepare a road map for the recovery of the airline.[14] The carrier sold three Airbus A300 and one Boeing 747-300M in March 2009 for $18.75 million to survive the financial crunch. [15] As of March 2011, Air India has accumulated a debt of Rs. 42,570 crore (approximately $10 billion) and an operating loss of Rs. 22,000 crore, and is seeking Rs. 42,920 crore from the government [16]. For the past three months (June, July, August, 2011), the carrier has been missing salary payments and interest payments and Moodys Investor Service has warned that missing payments by Air India to creditors, such as the State Bank of India, will negatively affect the credit ratings of those banks [16] [17]. A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) blamed the decision to buy 111 new planes as one of the major causes of the debt troubles in Air India; in addition it blamed on the ill timed merger with Indian Airlines as well [18], [19]. Air India's corporate headquarters is located at the Air India Building at Nariman Point in South Mumbai. The airline moved there in 1970. The Air India Building also serves as a regional office for Indian. Delhi Hub

On 1 March 2009, Air India had made Frankfurt Airport at Frankfurt am Main as its international hub for onward connections to United States from India; however, the airline shut down the Frankfurt hub on 30 October 2010. However on July 14, 2010 Air India chief, Arvind Jadhav announced their intention to make the new terminal 3 at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport the hub for international and domestic operations with the plans of starting new direct flights to Chicago and Toronto and also taking almost all international long haul flights away from its former Primary hub at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport due to lack of space.[20] This would also provide greater convenience for transit passengers who before had to transfer between the international and domestic terminals which were located on completely different sides of the airport. They will now be able to catch their connecting flights within the same terminal. Return to profitability plans The new Chairman and Managing director wants to change the order of some of the 111 planes ordered in 2006 to get narrow-body aircraft instead of the wide-body aircraft.[21]