Fasten your seat belts cuz the Maharaja is back.

Nearly seven decades after it lost control, Tatas on Thursday regained ownership of Air India and promised to turn the loss-making carrier into a world-class airline.  The Tata Group now takes full control of the iconic ‘Maharaja’. This seemed like a  formal homecoming for India’s first airline born in the company in 1932 before it was nationalised nearly 70 years ago and began a turbulent journey that pushed its economic viability to the brink.
So, let’s discuss the origin of Air India ,  a prized public service, the “first by an Asian airline to link the East and West by a regular service  and let’s look back at the  enthralling story of it’s return to it’s forefathers. 

Air India had its origin as Tata Air Services later renamed to Tata Airlines founded by J. R. D. Tata of Tata Sons, an Indian aviator and business tycoon. He was India's first licensed aviator and an aviation buff  with big dreams. In April 1932, Tata won a contract to carry mail for Imperial Airways and the aviation department of Tata Sons was formed with two single-engine de Havilland Puss Moths. Thus, at a tiny airfield in Karachi in undivided India on a breezy morning on 15 October 1932 when JRD Tata, the 28-year-old scion of a well-known business family, took off for Bombay in a single-engine plane. Thus, the Puss Moth – was beginning a modest weekly mail service.

The plane cruised at 100mph (160km/h), battling headwinds in what was a “bumpy and hot flight”. A bird flew into the cabin and had to be killed.After a refuelling stop – a bullock cart ferried fuel to the airline in Ahmedabad – the plane landed on a mud flat in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the late afternoon. After offloading some of the mail, the second, waiting plane took off with the remainder of its cargo to two cities in southern India , piloted by Nevill Vintcent, a close friend of Tata and a former Royal Air Force pilot. Initial service included weekly airmail service between Karachi and Madras via Ahmedabad and Bombay. In its first year of operation, the airline flew 260,000 km , carrying 155 passengers and 10.71 tons of mail and made a profit of ₹60,000. In those days, there were only two pilots, three ground engineers ,  four porters and two security guards . But , within six years, it all changed. 

In 1938, the airline was re-christened Tata Airlines and expanded internationally for the first time. The carrier added Colombo, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) to its route map in addition to the dozen or so destinations in India.

After World War II, regular commercial service was restored in India and Tata Airlines became a public limited company on 29 July 1946 under the name Air India. After Indian independence in 1947, 49% of the airline was acquired by the Government of India. This made the airlines public and opened several entrepreneurial opportunities. On 8 June 1948, a Lockheed Constellation L-749A named Malabar Princess (registered VT-CQP) took off from Bombay bound for  London’s Heathrow marking the airline's first international flight. The flight had V. K. Krishna Menon, cricketer Duleepsinji and cyclists headed towards the London Olympic . By the end of that year Air India was making profits. Air India soon gained reputation and became a symbol of Indian hospitality with the Maharajah acting as the mascot and the logo consisting of a flying swan with the wheel of Konark inside it.By 1968, 75% of its passengers came from foreign countries. George Harrison and The Doors flew on it; and Salvador Dali designed and gifted the airline with a special ashtray. As payment, Dali asked for a baby elephant, which Air India flew from Bangalore to Geneva, along with a mahout! 
Tata, a domineering businessman, was punctilious about in-flight service: he once pointed to the colour of tea served on the flight as “indistinguishable” from the colour of coffee; stopped cabin attendants from smoking in the galleys while on duty; and complained that the bacon and tomatoes were often served “stone cold” in the first class breakfast.
He also ticked off his crew for not being properly groomed. “We must know where to draw the line between the odd, the ridiculous and the attractive. Some of your pursers grow sideburns right into their collars! Some have grown drooping moustaches, that make them indistinguishable from Fu Manchu. Some hostesses have buns bigger than their head… please do pay special attention to make-up and appearance” he wrote in a note to one of his managers in 1951. 
However, amidst all these rosy days, the mood the nation, where a common man working on the villages and cities of the new nation used to only dream about riding on Air India, socialism and Nehruvian politics was acquiring a centre stage. The government went ahead with its plans to nationalise many companies, which incidentally involved Tata Airlines, too. JRD Tata was completely against the idea of nationalisation. He was of the view that the government of India had no experience in running an airline company, and nationalisation would mean bureaucracy and lethargy, a decline in employee morale and a fall in passenger services. His protests fell on deaf ears as the government took a 49% stake in the carrier, and renamed it Air India. 

In 1952, things took a dramatic turn. JRD Tata was left miffed after the government nationalized Air India (and several other carriers) and took it out of Tata’s control. JRD expressed his anguish that the government had intentionally treated the Tatas shabbily, and that it was a planned conspiracy to suppress private civil aviation, particularly the Tatas’ air services. Nehru reassured him of no such intentions. To employ his expertise, the government invited JRD to lead Air India and Indian Airlines as chairman. After protracted conversations at Tata Sons, JRD accepted the chairmanship of Air India and a directorship on the board of Indian Airlines. This, he had to handover his beloved child to the Government of India. 

JRD would serve on both positions until 1978. His position came under threat after an Air India flight plunged into the sea off the coast of Bombay, killing all 213 passengers and the crew onboard. One of the greatest air tragedies of its time, the fatal fall was attributed to pilot error. A month later, the Prime Minister Morarji Desai-led government dropped JRD from the chairmanship of Air India and the directorship of Indian Airlines. Some say the Prime Minister wanted to stop serving alcohol during flights but the Tatas refused to take down the booze! 
Things started going downhill from there, even after Tata was reinstated in his position by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Cases of awful conditions and massive corruption were reported. Competition became fiercer. Air India began making heavy losses after merging with the state-owned domestic operator Indian Airlines in 2007. It relied on taxpayer-funded bailouts to stay operational, and became the butt of jokes. “Air India is not expected to serve lizards. “ said a former Aviation Minister. 

In 2000–01, attempts were made to re-privatize Air India. IN 2007, Air India and Indian Airlines were merged under Air India Limited and the airline took delivery of its first Boeing 777 aircraft. The airline was invited to be a part of the Star Alliance in 2007. The combined losses for Air India and Indian Airlines in 2006–07 were ₹7.7 billion and after the merger, it went up to ₹72 billion by March 2009. In July 2009, State Bank of India was appointed to prepare a road map for the recovery of the airline but it went all null and void. 2012 was a year of significant economic loss, and this influenced the airline’s status on the Indian aviation market, placing it in the fourth place, behind Jet Airways, IndiGo and Spicejet. Debts were high, and the reputation was low. 

Finally , on 28 June 2017, the Government of India approved the privatisation of Air India. A committee has been set up to start the process. In 2018, the Indian government tried to privatize Air India by selling 76% of its stake in the national carrier but failed because no private-sector buyer expressed interest in the state-owned airline.In January 2020, the Indian government approved a new proposal to divest 100% stake in Air India as well as 50% shares of AISATS and to attract more bidders this time, the government has already decreased nearly ₹30,000 crore (US$4.0 billion) of debts and liabilities in a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) , which will be followed by the Expression of Interest (EoI) document to be issued this month. In September 2021, government issued fresh tenders for selling the airlines, where Spice Jet’s Ajay Singh-led consortium and Tata Sons shown interest in the bid. Finally, on 8 October 2021, Air India, along with its low cost carrier Air India Express and fifty percent of AISATS a ground handling company, were sold for ₹18,000 crore to Talace Private Limited, a Tata Sons’ SPV. On 27 January 2022, the airline was officially handed over to Tata Group. 

Now, Air India has returned to the Tata Group, India's biggest conglomerate. In an emotional note, Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus and cousin of JRD Tata, said the airline under JRD had "gained the reputation of being one of the most prestigious airlines in the world"."Tatas will have the opportunity of regaining the image and reputation it enjoyed in earlier years," he said. 
After 69 years, the Maharajah returned home. Now he will again be seen wearing a kimono to his Japan trip, a brit with a bowler hat and umbrella; a Frenchman with a beret; and a ruddy, alpine climber from Switzerland. Now, he will again go places!