Air India and the Tata Group: It’s complicated

The privatization of our flag carrier Air India has been like a recurrent meme on social media that one can neither verify nor swipe off the screen. This time, however, it could be for real. The government has had the airline on the block since 2017, and has twice had to rework plans and lessen its baggage—its debt burden, that is—after the deal on offer failed to evoke interest. With the expiry on Monday of the latest deadline to sign up for a chance to buy it, news reports suggest that several would-be buyers have lined up bids. The most prominent of these, reportedly, is the Tata Group, the business house which originally launched the operations that got renamed Air India and nationalized. Given this back history, Tata has long been assumed to be keen on it. Yet, the group did not snap it up at the earliest available opportunity, apparently preferring to wait till it made business sense for it. Should it get an auction ticket this month, the aggression of its bidding will no doubt be watched closely.