The Beginnings

In 1952, the condition of all the airlines witnessed a general deterioration all over the world. To rescue the airline sector of the country, the Planning Commission of India recommended the merger of all the scheduled airlines into a single integrated corporation.

At first, the Government of India favoured the establishment of one single corporation to handle the air transport of the nation but later it revised its decision to establish two separate air corporations.

Air Corporation Act, 1953, gave monopoly power to Indian Airlines to operate on domestic scheduled services ruling out any other operator. Similarly, Air India International became the single Indian carrier to operate on international routes expect flights to some neighbouring countries which were given to Indian Airlines.

While Air India International did not see any major problems of organisation, personnel or morale, the route was not smooth for Indian Airlines as it was a difficult task to fit in eight varieties of separate managerial and supervisory staff into its unified cadres of management.

Also, these airlines had different scales of pay and conditions of services, so it was also a challenge to mould all these units into one single integrated organisation with uniform standards of operation, administration and of course uniform scale pay.

The Air Corporation Act was passed by Parliament in March 1953 nationalising all airlines and approved by the President of India on May 28th 1953. Air India International took over the International routes of the nation. Indian Airlines Corporation started operations in the Domestic routes. Both Airlines commenced operations from August 1,1953

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