Tata, Singapore Airlines hand India’s Vistara another $65.4m

Vistara (UK, Delhi Int’l) has been handed a sixth injection of funding in the two years since the outbreak of the pandemic, with parent companies Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines together providing INR5 billion rupees (USD65.4 million).

The two companies operate the loss-making airline as a 51/49 joint venture, and as with the previous infusions the latest investment represented the same proportion, with Tata giving INR2.55 billion (USD33.3 million) and Singapore Airlines INR2.45 billion (USD32.1 million), according to a regulatory filing submitted to India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

The partners conducted the measure through a rights issue, and 500 million shares were allotted to them on February 14, which was just two weeks after the Tata conglomerate completed its acquisition of Air India (AI, Mumbai Int’l) in a USD2.4 billion equity and debt deal.

The previous, fifth, infusion took place last August, when the joint owners handed Vistara INR7.5 billion rupees (USD100 million), also by issuing new shares. Before that, in May 2021, the parents invested INR4.65 billion (USD61 million) in the venture. According to reports, so far they have sunk a combined INR50 billion (USD653 million) in the airline.

According to The Indian Express newspaper, the full-service airline has recently faced some criticism for a perceived slump in service quality, prompting Vinod Kannan, who took over as chief executive on January 1, to pen a letter to customers last month admitting the carrier “fell short” and “did not live up” to customers’ expectations.

More recently, Kannan told the Press Trust of India news agency that as post-Covid traffic ramps up Vistara plans to have a fleet of 70 aircraft by the end of 2023 – it currently operates 49, the ch-aviation fleets advanced module shows – and to add 1,000 more jobs by the end of 2022 to make a total of 5,000.