Mumbai: Industrial conglomerate Tata Sons on Monday proposed to increase its stake in AirAsia India to 49 per cent.

According to Tata Sons, it plans to increase equity stake in AirAsia India to 49 per cent from its existing stake of 41.06 per cent.

“Tata Sons has entered into an agreement with AirAsia (India), Telestra Tradeplace and two of the directors of the company, being S.Ramadorai (chairman) and R. Venkataramanan,” the industrial conglomerate said in a statement.

“Under (the agreement) which Tata Sons proposes to increase its stake in the company to 49 percent from its existing stake of 41.06 per cent, by acquiring 7.94 per cent equity stake from Telestra.”

The statement elaborated that Ramadorai and Venkataramanan, in their individual capacity, propose to acquire 0.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent shareholding respectively of Telestra’s remaining 2 per cent equity stake in the company.

“S.Ramadorai and R.Venkataramanan, in their individual capacity, propose to acquire 0.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent shareholding respectively of Telestra’s remaining 2 per cent equity stake in the company,” the statement said.

“AirAsia Investment will continue to hold its 49 per cent stake in the company.”

Tata Sons disclosed that it entered into the agreement on March 14, 2016, and expects the transaction to be completed in April 2016, subject to the completion of all the relevant corporate approvals and processes.

Initially, AirAsia Investment owned a 49 per cent stake in the budget airline, followed by 30 per cent by Tata Sons and the rest 21 per cent was held with Telestra Tradeplaces.

Last year, Tata Sons bought 11 per cent of Telestra’s stake, taking its total holding in the low cost carrier (LCC) to 41 per cent.

Since the start of operations on June 12, 2014, the Indo-Malaysian airline has acquired a fleet of six aircraft and carried over 1.8 million passengers.

Currently, it operates flight services on 12 routes.

In the most recent quarter of its operation — October-December 2015 — the LCC logged a 134 per cent growth in passenger traffic. It flew over half a million passengers, and operated 3,376 flights as compared to 1,444 flights in the same period of 2014.

Recent data furnished by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) showed that the budget airline’s passenger load factor during February stood at 85.5 per cent. It had a market share of 2.2 per cent in the month under review.