Getty ImagesAmerican full-service ship Vistara will perform its final journey on Monday, after nine years in presence.
Vistara, a joint venture between Tata-owned Air India and Singapore Airlines, may combine with Tata-owned Air India to create a single object with an expanded network and larger ship.
This results in the transfer of all Vistara activities, including ticketing offices and helpdesk kiosks, to Air India, where they will be run. Over the past several decades, Vistara orders and loyalty programs have been transitioning customers to Air India.
A representative for Air India said in an email response that “meals, service ware, and other sweet components have been upgraded and include Vistara and Air India” as part of the acquisition process.
Amid concerns that the acquisition may affect company standards, the Tatas have assured that Vistara’s in-flight knowledge will be constant.
Known for its high rankings in food, service, and house quality, Vistara has built a loyal customer base and the decision to retire the Vistara company has been criticised by fans, branding authorities, and aircraft experts.
The merger was properly done to clear up Vistara’s novels and wipe out its losses, said Mark Martin, an aircraft analyst.
Air India has largely been” suckered into taking a loss-making flight” in a desperate walk, he added.
” Mergers are meant to produce airlines strong. Not to replace losses or support losses.
In addition, another running metrics have improved as well as Air India and Vistara’s annual losses, which have both decreased by more than half over the past month. But the consolidation process so far has been tumultuous.
The exercise has had its share of issues, ranging from aircraft shortages that have caused significant flight cancellations to Vistara crew taking sick leave frequently due to plans to connect their pay with Air India.
Additionally, there have been numerous complaints about Air India’s subpar customer service, including viral videos of malfunctioning inflight entertainment systems and broken chairs.
Getty ImagesTatas has announced a$ 400 million ( £ 308 million ) program to upgrade and retrofit its older aircraft’s interiors as well as brand-new aircraft’s livery. In addition to their providing, they have placed orders for thousands of brand-new Boeing and Airbus aircraft worth billions of dollars.
But this “turnaround” is also incomplete and riddled with problems, according to Mr Martin. A consolidation only complicates things.
According to researchers, the acquisition also resonates negatively in terms of packaging.
Harish Bijoor, a company approach expert, told the BBC he was feeling “emotional” that a better solution providing like Vistara which had developed a “gold standard for American aviation” was ceasing operations.
” It is a big loss for the industry”, said Mr Bijoor, adding it will be a monumental task for the mother brand Air India to simply” copy, paste and exceed” the high standards set by Vistara, given that it’s a much smaller airline that’s being gobbled up by a much larger one.
Mr. Bijoor suggests that operating Air India separately for five years with the aim of enhancing service standards while keeping Vistara as a distinct brand with Air India as its prefix.
He continues,” This would have given Air India the opportunity to change the mother brand and raise it to the Vistara level while maintaining its distinctiveness.”
Beyond branding, the merged entity will face a slew of operational challenges.
Shutterstock” Communication will be a major challenge in the early days, with customers arriving at the airport expecting Vistara flights, only to find Air India branding”, says Ajay Awtaney, editor of Live From A Lounge, an aviation portal. ” Air India will require weeks of uninterrupted communication.”
Another key challenge, he notes, is cultural: Vistara’s agile employees may struggle to adjust to Air India’s complex bureaucracy and systems.
However, providing customers with a consistent flight experience would be the merged carrier’s biggest challenge.
These airlines are “being integrated into one airline with very different service formats. It is going to be a hotchpotch of service formats, cabin formats, branding, and customer experience. It will involve learning and unlearning, and such a process has rarely worked with airlines and is seldom effective”, said Mr Martin.
Still, many believe Vistara had to go – now or some years later.
A legacy brand like Air India, with strong global recognition and ‘ India ‘ imprinted in its identity, would n’t have allowed a smaller, more premium subsidiary to overshadow its revival process.
Financially speaking, the Tatas ‘ two loss-making businesses compete against one another.
The Tatas could face off against market leader Indigo thanks to Vistara and Air India’s combined strength.
With a fleet of nearly 300 aircraft, an expanded network, and a stronger workforce, the unified Air India group ( including Air India Express, which merged with the former Air Asia India in October )” will be bigger and better,” according to an Air India spokesperson.
The merger’s completion results in an overnight growth for Air India and a cooperative start-up for the two teams. Never will there be a perfect moment for merging. Somewhere, a line had to be drawn”, said Mr Awtaney.
But for many Vistara loyalists, its demise leaves a void in India’s skies for a premium, full-service carrier- marking the third such gap after the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways.
It’s still too early to say whether Air India, which frequently comes in at the bottom of airline surveys, will be able to fill that void.