Full circle, after 7 decades: Tatas win back Air India
The divestment of Air India to the Tata Group is the culmination of a story that has come full circle after nearly seven decades.
Tata Airlines was formed in April 1932 under the leadership of Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy (fondly called JRD) Tata, India’s first civil aviation pilot, Tata Group Chairman from 1938 to 1991, and the only industrialist to receive the Bharat Ratna. The story of Indian commercial civil aviation began on October 15, 1932, when JRD took off on his first official Tata Airlines flight from Karachi’s Drigh Road aerodrome and landed ahead of schedule at what was then Bombay’s Juhu airstrip (actually the wetlands of Juhu beach) .
