The Air India and Vistara merger is almost upon us, and that means we are learning a lot more about the airline’s plans to absorb Vistara into itself.

Air India to retain Vistara products and services for a few months.

While this was known in aviation circles for a while, Vistara and Air India issued a joint advertisement and press release earlier in October 2024, announcing that the Vistara experience would continue after the merger on November 12, 2024.

Air India will operate Vistara aircraft, which will be identified by a unique four-digit code beginning with the digit “2.” For instance, UK 955 will become AI 2955, helping customers identify them while booking on www.airindia.com after November 12. Vistara-liveried aircraft will have a sticker “Operated by Air India” on them until they go into the hangar for a paint job, which is probably a while away.

The routes and schedule operated by Vistara aircraft will continue to be the same, alongside the Vistara in-flight experience, which includes products and services such as menus and cutlery on the Vistara aircraft. The Vistara crew transitioning to Air India will also service the Vistara aircraft.

Through a multi-media campaign, the airline also pointed out that the unified Air India opens up limitless possibilities for passengers, including unparalleled connections to over 90 domestic and international destinations and over 800 more destinations through codeshare and interline partners.

This should be a transitionary phase and well thought out, given that Air India will be unable to start moving around the pieces on day one after the merger. It will need a while before it can, and now, it has advised the travelling public about how to book Air India but experience Vistara.

Air India will operate Vistara aircraft on select routes.

Air India also plans to use Vistara aircraft beyond March 2025 in a particular manner. Vistara aircraft have better interiors than Air India’s own aircraft on major metro-to-metro routes, and Air India intends to designate these planes on major routes operating ex-Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru post-merger.

Sources at Air India said that in long-haul offerings, Vistara’s 787 aircraft will exclusively serve Frankfurt (FRA) and London Heathrow (LHR) routes. At the same time, Air India’s fleet maintains operations on remaining international routes, including the Paris (CDG) services currently operated by Vistara.

The deployment strategy ensures service consistency during Air India’s fleet refurbishment programme. Air India operates many configurations on its high-value routes between major cities and is upgrading its legacy A320neo aircraft. Aircraft relieved from these routes will be sent on other Air India/Vistara-operated routes.

Bottomline

Vistara products and services will continue to appear across the length and breadth of the Air India network after the two entities’ merger on November 12, 2024. Nothing will change except the flight numbers for the first few months, which will now carry flight number AI2xxx to designate the equipment and service as Vistara while Air India sells the flight. Eventually, Vistara aircraft will head on to specific routes, where these will operate for “consistency” sake so that Air India/Vistara can effectively compete with IndiGo without losing their loyal customer base.

What do you think of Air India’s thinking around the product utilisation of Vistara after their merger?

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