Govt announces plan to sell entire stake in Air India, sets terms for sale

Current Affairs
The administration said India said on Monday it intends to sell its whole stake in Air India, in an amended push to sell its national bearer after an underlying endeavor to sell a greater part stake in the carrier neglected to attract a solitary offer 2018.
An archive welcoming articulations of enthusiasm for Air India, discharged on Monday, said the legislature would sell a 100 percent stake in the bearer, which works both residential and worldwide courses.
The archive set March 17 as the cutoff time for entries of beginning articulations of intrigue and said any bidder would need to consent to accept generally $3.26 billion in the red, alongside different liabilities.
The administration said that generous possession and viable control of Air India would need to stay vested with an Indian element following the deal, restricting the extent of any remote bidders inspired by the benefit.
In 2018, India had attempted to sell a 76% stake in Air India and offload about $5.1 billion of its obligation, terms that potential purchasers at the time saw as excessively cumbersome.

Air India, known for its Maharaja mascot, has a portion of India's most rewarding universal and residential landing and stopping spaces that are key for carriers....Read More

The days of national airlines are over: Why flag carriers must be shut down

Companies News

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told reporters he's studying whether to sell, shut down or refinance Malaysia Airlines Bhd., the troubled national carrier. A decision needs to be made soon. In 2018, the perpetually money-losing airline accounted for about half of the $1.5 billion in losses suffered by its parent, Khazanah Nasional Bhd., Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund.

On purely economic terms, Mahathir’s decision should be easy. In 2014, following the loss of planes and lives in the MH370 disappearance and the tragic downing of MH17 over Ukraine, Khazanah announced a restructuring intended to make the airline profitable by 2018. It’s failed for one central reason: Malaysia Airlines remains a state-owned flag carrier, slow-moving and burdened by political expectations. At a time when low-cost airlines offer a perfectly adequate and more competitive alternative, Malaysia isn’t the only country that should rethink whether it really needs a national airline.

The concept of a flag carrier dates back to the establishment in the mid-1940s of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations regulator. Every nation was given the opportunity to operate international air services. Some countries, including the U.S., chose to let private companies do the flying. Others decided to establish, subsidize and protect flag carriers, even to the point of restricting competition on key routes.


 Those airlines had goals other than profits. For decades, according to Brian Summers at Skift, "nearly every national airline within 12 hours of New York flew to John F. Kennedy Airport, or wanted to -- whether the flights lost money or not."