Tata Group today said it had kept its budget carrier partner AirAsia in the loop on its forging a 51:49 joint venture with Singapore Airlines for a full service airline.

“AirAsia was informed... made aware of the partnership with Singapore Airlines, even at the initial level of discussions,” Mukund Rajan, spokesperson, Tata Group said on the sidelines of an event here.

“They (AirAsia) had no objections (to the joint venture), as when we were in dialogue with AirAsia, they knew about our plans with Singapore Airlines,” Rajan said.

He also discounted the possibility of any problems with AirAsia going forward, saying: “I don’t think there will be any problem with any of the joint ventures. And we are fully committed to participating and supporting both the joint ventures.”

The remarks came in the wake of Arun Bhatia of Telestra Tradeplace, who is the third partner with the Tatas and AirAsia to start a budget carrier AirAsia India, reportedly saying he wasn’t aware of Tata’s JV with SIA.

Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines are teaming up for the third time in a bid to enter the domestic aviation market with a proposal to invest $100 million (around Rs 620 crore) to launch a full service airline, which has been named Tata-SIA Airlines. The brand name is yet to be revealed.

With Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher out of the fray, the domestic market is left with only two full service airlines --Air India and private airline Jet Airways.

The joint venture has already applied for approval to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, Tata Sons said in the statement while announcing the signing of MoU on Thursday.

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