Airline founded in the 1932 as Tata airlines, now an international airline owned by the government of India was first inaugurated in 1932 by J.R.D Tata, flying mail and passengers between Karachi, Ahmedabad, Bombay (now Mumbai), Bellary and madras (now Chennai).
By 1939 routes had been extended to Trivandrum (now Thiruvananthapuram), Delhi, Colombo, Lahore, and intermediate points. Afte World WarII in 1946, Tata Airlines was converted into a public company and renamed Air-India Limited.
Air- India today offers a network of 44 destinations worldwide. Its fleet has grown from Dakotas and Vickers Vikings, to Super constellations and Boeing 707s, to Boeing 747-200s, Boeing 747-300s and Airbus 300-B4s. the latest addition has been the Boeing 747-400s and Airbus 310s.
In 1962 Air India earned the distinction of becoming the world`s first all-jet airline. In 1990, Air-India airlifted 111,711 stranded passengers from Amman to Mumbai by operating 488 flights in an operation that lasted 59 days. This feat was the largest evacuation of civilians by an airline to that date.
(Last Updated on : 23/01/2009)
