With Air India and Vistara merger, what can customers expect?

All Vistara flight bookings, November 12 onwards, will automatically be transferred to Air India.

On Friday, Air India and Vistara announced that from November 12 onwards, all Vistara flights will be operated under the Tata Group's Air India banner. The development came after the union government cleared Singapore Airlines' Rs 2,058.5 crore Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) proposal in Air India Group.

The government has already given its assent for the foreign direct investment by Singapore Airlines as part of the Air India-Vistara merger. While Air India is owned by Tata Group, Vistara is a joint venture between Tata Group and Singapore Airlines.

The announcement has left passengers worried about already booked flights with Vistara.

However, the airline has clarified that this merger will not affect flights booked till November 11. Those who have flights booked after that date will automatically have new Air India flights assigned to them.

An article in The Indian Express has clarified that e-tickets will be issued to affected passengers. The issuing of the electronic tickets will be carried out in phases throughout September. Each customer will be informed individually when a new ticket is generated for them.

There are also some changes on the booking side of things. From September 3 onwards, customers will only be able to book tickets for Vistara flights after the deadline date of November 12. However, Vistara flights can be booked for travel dates till November 11.

The same stands for other services such as add-ons and modification of bookings, for flights scheduled till November 11 — changes can be made through the Vistara website itself. Past this date, however, all changes to any Vistara flights booked will have to be made on the Air India website.

In terms of service and the flight experience, passengers can expect the same sort of quality — at least initially. All Vistara crew members and aircraft will be transferred to Air India and will operate as usual. In a few months, however, the line between the two carriers will likely get blurred as there is more unified deployment of flights and crew members, the article noted.

The loyalty programmes of the two carriers will also be merged eventually. Club Vistara will be merged with Air India’s own frequent flyer programme called 'Flying Returns'. Customers who happen to have accounts with both these airlines can go to the Vistara website and merge their accounts. If they don't do this themselves, both accounts will be merged automatically at a later date. In case of a mismatch of details, a new Flying Returns account will be created to which Club Vistara points will be transferred.