Since the Indian aviation sector opened its sky for private players in early 90s, the state run carries have consistently slipped their share in aviation market. Foreign airlines and domestic players like Jet, Sahara and Kingfisher are rapidly vanquishing more shares in the market.

In an attempt to compete more effectively with private players and to create a strong global player the civil aviation ministry has decided to merge of two state run carriers, named Air India and Indian airlines. The proposed unification, accepted to finalize by the start of April, would churn out a jumbo squad.

The civil aviation minister Praful Patel sees the merger as a maximization of revenue and yielding annual savings of $113m annually. The minister assured that there would be no short listing of 30,000 employees.

Patel told reporters:

We want to see a big, strong national carrier. This is our intention.

Industry experts said the aging aircrafts of both companies is additional cause of merger as Air is going to buy 68 planes from Boeing and Indian Airlines has placed an order for 43 Airbus planes. After the merger, AI-IA will operate a combined fleet strength of 160-plus aircraft.

The positive outcome is considered as maximization in the revenue and low cost of operation and it would be interesting to see that how far this merger succeeds in achieving its goals.

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