Tata Sons intends to consolidate cargo operations across its four airlines and bring it under a single umbrella, an unnamed official from Air India (AI, Delhi International) has told The Economic Times newspaper. Tata runs Air India, Vistara, Air India Express, and AIX Connect, but it will cut that down to two when it merges the two full-service carriers and the two low-cost carriers into a single full-service and single budget airline.
"We have been consolidating and streamlining the entire network from all four airlines to bring it to one function," the source explained. "Internally, efforts are being streamlined at multiple levels. We are developing a mother software, which will focus on collating all cargo requests, revenue management, and commercial aspects. Externally, we are streamlining and expanding our global distribution network. We are also onboarding new customers."
The informant said that down the track, a separate cargo subsidiary may be set up "to unlock the full potential" of Air India. In July, the flag carrier announced that it had selected software-as-a-service company IBS Software to digitally revamp its cargo systems.
“Air India is on a transformation journey to not only reaffirm its position as a global leader in aviation but also establish foundations for future growth," the airline's chief commercial and transformation officer Nipun Aggarwal said at the time. "Air cargo is one of the key drivers of our roadmap for future growth."
"This effort is aimed at developing and giving an advantage of network-wide distribution capability to our customers globally," an Air India spokesperson told ch-aviation this week. "Our global network also includes our trucking and interline partners. Collectively, the network gives us a reach of about 500 plus stations globally. This is ever expanding. Our domestic and regional international routes are unique and provide great distribution capability to us."
Twelve months ago, CEO Campbell Wilson said Air India was looking to triple its annual cargo capacity by 2028, albeit at the time he was more focused on increasing the cargo carrying capacity of passenger aircraft than bringing in dedicated freighters. The Air India spokesperson confirmed this remained the airline's preferred option and that there were no current plans to acquire freighters.
