115,000 passengers impacted as Vistara merges with Air India on November 12

Delhi: In the first month after the merger, nearly 115,000 passengers who had purchased Vistara tickets pre-merger are expected to fly on a unified Air India. India’s flag carrier announced Wednesday it has taken multiple steps to ensure a smooth on-ground experience for passengers as Vistara merges with Air India on November 12.

Post-merger, all Vistara aircraft will be operated by Air India and identified by a special four-digit Air India code beginning with the digit ‘2’. For example, UK 955 will become AI 2955. This would help passengers identify them while booking seats on the airline after November 12.

However, Vistara's routes and schedule will continue to be the same, as will the Vistara in-flight experience, which includes the product and services. “The same crew will also service it,” the airline explained.

Vistara, a full-service carrier, was founded in 2013 as a joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines. The carrier commenced operations on January 9, 2015, with its inaugural flight between Delhi and Mumbai. In 2022, the Tata Group acquired Air India from the government of India, merging the airline's operations with Air India.

What can passengers expect?

Air India explained it has deployed additional resources across touch points in India and is working closely with partner airports to undertake several steps to make this easier for passengers.

This includes help desk kiosks at the curbside, before terminal entry at hubs and metro city airports and deploying more customer support staff to assist passengers. The support staff will be wearing ‘How may I assist you?’ Air India x Vistara branded t-shirts for passengers to identify them, Air India said in a statement.

Progressively, Vistara airport ticketing offices and check-in terminals will become Air India offices and terminals. Passengers calling the Vistara contact centre will be automatically directed to Air India representatives.

“Over the last few months, 270,000 customers who had booked Vistara flights have been migrated to Air India and notified about the change. Further, over 4.5 million Vistara loyalty programme members are being migrated to Air India’s loyalty programme,” the airline said.

Air India said its narrowbody fleet continues to be upgraded, with new aircraft being delivered, legacy aircraft being refitted with entirely new interiors, and Vistara’s catering now also being extended to Air India.

Moreover, Air India’s widebody fleet has also been augmented with the entry of six A350 aircraft that have started to fly between Delhi and London and Delhi and New York. Air India also launched a retrofit program, with the first A320neo narrow-body aircraft being sent for retrofit. “27 narrow body legacy aircraft will be refurbished and retrofitted, and this retrofit is likely to be completed by the middle of 2025,” an airline statement explained.

The retrofitted A320neo aircraft will feature 8 business seats, 24 Premium Economy seats, and 132 economy seats.