Winning Bizness Desk
Mumbai. Ever since the Tata Group bought Air India, its effort has been to revive it as well as to make it one of the world's largest airlines and therefore Tata Group has made a plan to merge its second airlines Vistara with Air India, but now there are clouds of crisis on this merger deal. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has sent a notice to the Tata Group regarding this deal. The CCI, an organization working to maintain competition in the Indian market, did not immediately allow the merger of Air India and Vistara, on the contrary, it has sent notices to both the airlines regarding the deal. The CCI wants to conduct an inquiry into the impact of the merger of the two airlines on the market. All the airlines of Tata Group have a domestic market share of 23.9 percent and 23.10 percent in the international market. After the merger, these will be the second largest airlines in the country.
CCI sent notices to Air India and Vistara
The CCI has sent separate notices to Air India and Vistara asking that an inquiry be conducted regarding the impact of the merger of the two airlines. Now for this both the airlines have to send their reply to CCI. The merger of Air India and Vistara may get delayed due to CCI's investigation. Quoting a CCI official, it has been said in media reports that this process is still in the second phase. In this process, there will be detailed discussion between both the companies and CCI. If the CCI did not have to do any investigation regarding this deal, then the permission for the merger would have been given within 30 days and it would have been easy for the Tata Group to merge the two airlines.
It may take 7 months
If the CCI makes an assumption regarding a deal that it will adversely affect the market or worsen the competition of the market, then the CCI investigates it in the second stage. This investigation can take up to 210 days. Tata Group had applied to CCI on 19 April for approval of the merger of Vistara and Air India. Tata Group has set a target of uniting all its airlines business by March 2024. Apart from Air India and Air Vistara, Tata Group is also merging two more airlines. AirAsia India is being merged into Air India Express, these airlines will compete with IndiGo, Akasaa Air, GoFirst and SpiceJet in the low-cost market. While Air India and Air Vistara will work like a full service airlines after the merger.
