The joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines to start a full-service domestic airline crossed another hurdle on Wednesday with the Ministry of Civil Aviation granting the new venture a ‘No Objection Certificate’.
Before grant of NoC, the board members of the Tata-SIA venture were cleared by the Home Ministry from a security point of view, a common practice for new airline.
Tata-SIA, like any new airline, will need to get its various operations manual, including the airline operations manual and airport manual, cleared by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation before the Air Operator’s Permit is given. The airline is a joint venture in which Tata Sons has a 51 per cent stake, with Singapore Airlines taking up 49 per cent.
The airline project, which got the approval of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board in October last year, will be launched with an initial investment of $100 million, including a foreign direct investment component of $49 million.
A day after the Foreign Investment Promotion Board cleared the proposal for setting up a new airline, the Tata-SIA Chairman Prasad Menon said the airline hopes to start flying by June 2014.
The airline has already decided to start operations with Airbus A-320s and a decision to acquire 20 new leased aircraft was firmed up in Mumbai in late December last year. Tata-SIA is the second airline project after AirAsia India in which Tata Sons has taken a stake.