Tata Sons emerges as the winner in Air India bid. What ailed the Maharaja?

Tata Sons have emerged as the winning bidder for Air India, a debt-ridden airline that was nationalised in 1953, reports said on Friday. The selection of Tata Sons to lead Air India may seem like history coming full-circle as it was the same group that built India’s first airlines in 1932 and called it the Tata Airlines. Tata Airlines, which was a brainchild of JRD Tata and a veteran World War I pilot Nevill Vintcent, was renamed Air India in 1946 after it became public.

With Tata Sons emerging as Air India next owners, this handover could come as a relief for Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the enterprise, for decades, was bleeding the government. According to a Reuters report, the government was losing ₹200 million every day to run Air India.