Domestic Airlines in India

The booming Indian economy has led to a spillover effect on the development of Indian airline companies. Now we will take a deep look into the main carriers of current domestic aviation market of India.

Air India & Indian Airlines
Air India was initially founded in 1932 as Tata Airlines by JRD Tata. It was converted into a Public Company under the name of Air India in August 1946.

On March 8, 1948, Air India International Limited was formed to start Air India's international operations.

Due to deteriorating financial condition of various airlines in early 1950s, the Government decided to nationalize air transport. In 1953 two autonomous corporations were created.

Indian Airlines was formed with the merger of eight domestic airlines to operate domestic services, while Air India International was established to operate the overseas services.

In 2007 Indian Government announced that the two airlines would be merged together. And a new company called the National Aviation Company of India Limited was established to facilitate the merger.

Operating under the name Air India, the two airlines formally became one entity on 15 July 2007. Air India is India's national carrier and the only government owned airline in India. The new airline's headquarters remain in Mumbai and have a fleet of over 130 aircraft.

Jet Airways & JetLite
Based in Mumbai, Jet Airways commenced its operations as an air taxi operator in 1993 with four aircraft. It was granted the scheduled airline status in January 1995.

In April 2007, it took over Air Sahara, one of the older privately-owned airlines in India and renamed it as JetLite. JetLite operates scheduled services connecting metropolitan centers in India. It also provides helicopters for charter services and aerial photography.

Now Jet Airways is the second largest international airline and the largest domestic airline of India. It's the first Indian private airline to fly to international destinations.

And it operates over 380 flights daily to 44 destinations in India and controls about 29.8% of India's aviation market according to March 2008 statistics.

Jet Airways has won a number of awards in recognition of standards of its service. It received the ISO 9001:2000 certification for its on board services. And it was voted as the world's best long-haul airline after Singapore Airlines in July 2008.

Other Airline Companies
Besides the above-mentioned industry giants, several cheap airline carriers have entered the play and made air travel more affordable to all Indians.

India's first low cost airline carrier is Deccan, named Air Deccan previously. It was founded in August 2003, "with the vision to empower every Indian to fly by providing the lowest airfares and connectivity to unconnected towns and cities".

SpiceJet, based in New Delhi, was voted the best low-cost carrier in Central Asia by SkyTrax in 2007.

GoAir and Indigo Air are relative new-comers for Indian domestic flights. All these companies do not differentiate in fares between NRI, tourists and locals.