Back to the future: Air India looks to take off with mega-purchase

One of India’s biggest and oldest conglomerates is returning to its roots with a multi-billion-dollar bet on the country’s growing middle class and its demand for air travel.

Air India was for many years under state ownership, a byword for underinvestment, crippling losses, and inefficiency.

Now back in the hands of its original private owners, it announced combined purchases of 470 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing on Tuesday, which together form one of the largest orders in aviation history.

The announcement comes a year after tea-to-software conglomerate Tata Group re-acquired the loss-making airline, founded by globetrotting Franco-Indian industrialist JRD Tata, who piloted its maiden flight in 1932.