NEW DELHI: With the Union Cabinet approving the merger plan of the two State-owned carriers, Air India and Indian Airlines, the Civil Aviation Ministry is gearing up to complete the formalities over the next few weeks.

Though mooted about a year ago, the mergerhad to pass through scrutiny, including by a Committee of Secretaries and the Empowered Group of Ministers headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, before getting Cabinet approval.

Aviation experts feel that the single mega airline will face the challenge of different fleet compositions, reservation and tickets on domestic and international sectors, integration of human resources, training of pilots, maintaining spares, engineering and jet shops and maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities.

Route rationalisation

The most time-consuming and challenging process can well turn out to be route rationalisation on the international sectors where both Air India and Indianserve as well as adopting a common ticketing and reservation system in all cities of their operations. Both airlines have gone for e-ticketing and Indianrecently launched web check-in facility as well.

By the time the merger formalities are completed over the next two years, the new airline will have 112 aircraft and employee strength of about 33,000. Both airliners have begun fleet renewal plan and phased induction of new passenger jetliners.

While Air India will see the induction of 68 new planes ordered from U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing between this April and 2012, Indianhas opted for 43 aircraft of Airbus family from European consortium Airbus Industrie of which the first one (Airbus A-319) was inducted a few months ago and the next one is due this summer.

Business units

The merged entity, ranking among the top 25 airlines in the world and among the top 10 in Asia-Pacific, will have special business units carved out to look after its interests and carry on business. The special units will look after MRO facilities, jetshop, cargo, ground handling and low cost carriers. Each special unit is likely to be headed by a chief executive officer.

The subsidiaries of Air India and Indian— Air India Express and Alliance Air — will also become one and offer low-cost travel in some of the domestic and international sectors. Air India Express already offers economical travel to passengers to the Gulf, mainly from destinations in Kerala.

Addressing a major concern of the employees on the possibility of retrenchment, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel assured their unions and associations that the merger would only improve their career and salary prospects and protect their seniority as well.

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