Air India trades the swan for a gold window

Tata took back a loss-making state airline and redrew it around a gold window. Critics split, and the numbers moved for many reasons.

Teardown 10 of 10·From India·Airline·2023·Members

Verdict · Mixed

The new look reached aircraft when the airline said it would and critics split over it, while no source credits it for the smaller losses that followed.

Before

Air India began as Tata Airlines, founded by the Tata group in 1932, and it was nationalised in 1953.¹ When Tata won it back in 2021, CNBC described it as a “loss-making national flag carrier”.¹ CNBC reported it had cost taxpayers an average of nearly $3 million a day over the past decade.¹

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Sources for the opening

1Tata regains control of troubled Air India with a $2.4 billion bidCNBC · 9 October 2021 · cnbc.com

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