After low-cost carrier IndiGo’s promoter Inter Globe Aviation in June evinced interest in buying the Maharaja mascot sporting Air India’s international operations and its subsidiary Air India Express, it is now the turn of Tata Group and Singapore Airlines to bid for the debt-ridden national carrier, according to Vistara CEO Leslie Thng. Though there are doubts over whether the bidding will be done jointly, Thng told reporters on Friday that “the two promoters are open to evaluate bids for Air India. They keep an open mind.” Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines run the full-service Vistara airline in India through a 51:49 joint venture formed in 2013. Thng also mentioned that Vistara will lease five more A320 NEO aircraft by June 2018. Air India, founded in the 1930s by the Tata Group before it was nationalised in 1953, is saddled with a debt burden of Rs 50,000 crore and a bloated cost structure. The Tata Group was interested in bidding for state-owned Air India, chairman N Chandrasekaran had said late last year.

Meanwhile, in December, minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha had told Parliament that the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had given an in-principle approval for considering the strategic disinvestment of Air India and its five subsidiaries. Following the CCEA’s decision, an Air India-specific ‘alternative mechanism’, headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley, was formed. It has been mandated to guide the strategic divestment process and to decide on key issues, such as treatment of the airline’s debt and hiving off its assets. The government also appointed consultancy firm EY as the transaction adviser for the strategic divestment. If Inter Globe Aviation, and now the Tata Group and Singapore Airlines want a large chunk of Air India’s kitty, SATS, Bir Group and Celebi have shown interest in buying the national carrier’s ground handling unit.

Air India made an operating profit of Rs 105 crore during 2015-16 and Rs 215 crore (provisional) in 2016-17, and as per Budget estimates for 2017-18 (provisional). It is projected to make an operating profit of Rs 531 crore. The national carrier got a new lease of life in 2012 when then UPA government had approved a `30,000-crore turnaround and financial restructuring package spanning up to 2021. Last month, senior IAS officer and turnaround artist Pradeep Singh Kharola took charge of the beleaguered airline as its chairman and managing director (CMD) from Rajeev Bansal. Terming “professional and productive work culture” as key to the airline’s turnaround, Kharola has said in a New Year message to employees that “we have to perform if we do not want to perish”.

Air India has to score over competition in on-time performance, load factor and cleanliness, among other things, he observed. “Amidst all the talk about our future identity, we have to stay focused and deliver.”