Air India Logo

About Air India

Air India is an Indian airline headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana. It began as Tata Airlines, founded by J. R. D. Tata on 15 October 1932, when a Puss Moth carried air mail from Karachi to Bombay. It became a public limited company under the name Air India on 29 July 1946, and the Government of India bought a majority stake in 1953.

Tata Group bought the airline back for about US$1.9 billion (₹180 billion) on 8 October 2021 and took it over on 27 January 2022, ending 69 years of state ownership. Its main hub is Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, with secondary hubs in Bengaluru and Mumbai. The merger with Vistara, announced in November 2022, was completed on 12 November 2024, with Singapore Airlines taking a 25% stake in the combined airline.

The Air India Logo: Design and Meaning

The current logo, unveiled on 10 August 2023 as part of the "Vista" rebrand, is the name "AIR INDIA" in wide, bold red capitals, followed by a gold, folded-ribbon shape at the end. The A's have an arched, pointed top rather than a plain triangle. Wikipedia says the logo is inspired by the pattern of the Jharokha, a traditional Indian window, and that the livery uses deep red, aubergine and gold.

It replaced the flying swan with the Konark wheel, in use from 2007 to 2023, which had itself followed the centaur logo used from 1948 to 2007. The airline's older mascot, the Maharajah, was created in 1946 by Bobby Kooka and Umesh Rao and was updated in 2015 and 2023.