After 68 years, Tata Sons has reclaimed control of Air India, with the government selecting the salt-to-software giant as the winning bidder. JRD Tata started Air India (as Tata Airlines) in 1932, and it was nationalized about the time India won independence in 1947. Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata today tweeted an old image of the late JRD Tata getting off an Air India plane to welcome the airline back into the Tata Group.
“On a more sentimental note, Air India had formerly been regarded as one of the world’s most renowned airlines, thanks to Mr. JRD Tata’s leadership. Tatas will have the chance to reclaim the image and reputation that it had in previous years. If Mr. JRD Tata had been in our midst today, he would have been ecstatic “Mr. Tata stated in a message that accompanied the old photo that he posted.
JRD Tata’s passion for aviation gave birth to Air India, the airline that gave a country wings. JRD Tata not only pioneered aviation in India, but he was also the first Indian to receive a pilot’s license.
JRD When a flying club debuted in Tata’s hometown of Bombay, he was 24 years old. According to a Tata Group blog article, he wasn’t the first to register, but he was the first Indian to graduate with the ‘No. 1’ endorsed on his pilot’s license.
JRD Tata famously conducted the first flight in Indian aviation history on October 15, 1932. The Tata Air Services flight departed Karachi’s Drigh Road Aerodrome for Mumbai’s Juhu Airstrip. The plane was a De Havilland Puss Moth, which had only one engine.
“A Puss Moth and I soared happily from Karachi with our first precious batch of mail, on an inaugural trip to Bombay, on an exhilarating October day in 1932,” JRD Tata later remembered. “We were a tiny group back then. We shared our triumphs and failures, our pleasures and sorrows as we established the company that would eventually become Air-India and Air-India International.”
Today, hearing the word “Air India” brings up thoughts of the airline’s mascot, the hulking Maharaja.
According to Air India, the Maharaja was developed by Bobby Kooka, the airline’s Commercial Director, and Umesh Rao, an artist of J.Walter Thompson Ltd., Mumbai.
JRD’s 46-year career in aviation encompassed everything from the two-seater Puss Moth to the 400-seater Boeing 747. Mr Tata, a perfectionist, required that no compromises be made in terms of operating and maintenance standards, as well as service. The airline’s chairman once contacted him in the middle of the night to provide advice on how to enhance the language on a marketing hoarding, according to an airline executive.
JRD Tata once instructed the staff of the airline, “I want our passengers to have no reason to complain when travelling with us. I want to make it clear that no airline is more popular with customers, is safer and more timely, provides better food and services, or projects a better image than Air India.”
In fact, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru once wrote to Mr Tata to commend the airline’s outstanding standards. “I believe that Air India International has played a significant role in increasing India’s international status,” the former prime minister said in his letter.
