Alliance Air (formerly Air India Regional) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AIAHL (AI Assets Holding Ltd.) which is a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV ) formed by Government of India after the

disinvestment Disinvestment refers to the use of a concerted economic boycott to pressure a government, industry, or company towards a change in policy, or in the case of governments, even regime change. The term was first used in the 1980s, most commonly in ...

Air India Limited Air India Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tata Group. It is headquartered at the Airlines House in New Delhi. It was previously a central public sector undertaking under the ownership of Ministry of Civil Aviation. It was incor ...

. It was founded in April 1996 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of

Indian Airlines Indian Airlines was a division of Air India Limited. It was based in Delhi and focused primarily on domestic routes, along with several international services to neighbouring countries in Asia. It was a division of Air India Limited after m ...

(later merged with

Air India Air India is the flag carrier airline of India, headquartered at New Delhi. It is owned by Talace Private Limited, a Special-Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of Tata Sons, after Air India Limited's former owner, the Government of India, completed the ...

in 2011 and remained a subsidiary till 2022) and mainly operates domestic routes as part of the government's Regional Connectivity Scheme.

History

Alliance Air was founded in April 1996 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of

(merged with

in 2011). The parent company wished to make better use of its

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Boeing Renton Factory, Renton Factory in Washington (state), Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the Boeing 707, 7 ...

fleet, so it wet-leased 12 of these aircraft to Alliance Air. The subsidiary operated its first flight on 15 April 1996. Alliance Air served as a low-cost feeder airline for Indian Airlines, providing connections to the latter's hubs from various smaller cities across the country. In 2002 the airline was offering flights to 44 destinations in India utilizing a fleet of 11 Boeing 737-200s. On 1 April 1997, Vayudoot Airlines, a joint venture of

and

Merged with Alliance Air to serve the regional air routes of Northeast India and several other parts of India. Alliance Air began operating its first scheduled international flight from

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

Jaffna Jaffna (, ) is the capital city of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna District located on a peninsula of the same name. With a population of 88,138 in 2012, Jaffna is Sri Lanka's 12th mo ...

on 11 November 2019. Alliance Air announced that it had recorded an operating profit for the first time in its history during the 2019-20 fiscal year. The airline made an operating profit of , but still ended the period with a net loss of . The airline stated that it had adopted the new IND AS 116 accounting standard, and would have actually recorded a net profit of under the previous standard. Alliance Air's parent company,

, was sold to

Tata Sons Tata Sons Private Limited is the parent company of the Tata Group and holds the bulk of shareholding in the Tata group of companies including their land holdings across India, tea estates and steel plants. It is a privately owned conglomerate of ...

on 8 October 2021. Alliance Air was not a part of the deal, and was instead transferred to Air India Asset Holdings Ltd (AIAHL), a state-owned special purpose vehicle that holds Air India's remaining assets and liabilities. ''

The Economic Times ''The Economic Times'' is an Indian English-language business-focused daily newspaper. It is owned by The Times Group. ''The Economic Times'' began publication in 1961. As of 2012, it is the world's second-most widely read English-language bu ...

'' reported that the government also intended to sell Alliance Air and use the proceeds to pay down AIAHL's debt. Alliance Air was valued at around . Alliance Air signed an agreement with

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is an Indian state-owned aerospace and defence company, headquartered in Bangalore, India. Established on 23 December 1940, HAL is one of the oldest and largest aerospace and defence manufacturers in the worl ...

(HAL) to lease two 17-seater

Dornier 228 The Dornier 228 is a twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, designed and first manufactured by Dornier GmbH (later DASA Dornier, Fairchild-Dornier) from 1981 until 1998. Two hundred and forty-five were built in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. In 19 ...

aircraft in September 2021. The first aircraft was delivered to Alliance Air on 7 April 2022. The Dornier 228 had previously only been used by the

Indian Armed Forces The Indian Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of India. It consists of three professional uniformed services: the Indian Army, Indian Navy, and Indian Air Force.—— Additionally, the Indian Armed Forces are supported by th ...

but was modified by HAL for commercial operations. Alliance Air deployed the aircraft on a new route connecting

Dibrugarh Dibrugarh (pron: ˌdɪbru:ˈgɑ:) is an industrial city in Upper Assam with sprawling tea gardens. It is located 435 kms East from the state capital of Dispur. It serves as the headquarters of Dibrugarh district in the state of Assam i ...

, Assam and

Pasighat Pasighat is the headquarters of East Siang district in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Situated at the eastern foothills of the Himalayas at above mean sea level, Pasighat is Arunachal's oldest town. The Government of India included Pa ...

, Arunachal Pradesh on 12 April 2022, becoming the first airline to use an Indian-made aircraft in civil aviation operations and the first commercial airline in the country to operate the Dornier 228 aircraft. Since 15 April 2022, Alliance Air came under the control of

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

, after

announcing it not to be a subsidiary of

anymore, as the group acquired the ownership of the Air India in January 2022. Subsequently, Alliance Air started functioning independently and selling its tickets under Alliance Air banner.

Destinations

Alliance Air operates to 75 destinations in India as of November 2022. It operates regional services in India through its hubs in Bengaluru,

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

and

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

. The airline started its first international flight from

on 11 November 2019 but temporarily had to halt operations from Chennai due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

Fleet

Alliance Air operates the following aircraft : VT-RKE VOBL (38675264715)

Former fleet

References

External links