Centre looks to divest Alliance Air & AI Engineering Services

The government is preparing to privatise the low cost carrier Alliance air and India's largest MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) player Air India Engineering services, simultaneously.

"The process of disinvestment of both the companies will be done simultaneously. Expressions of interest (EoIs) will be invited by the government in due course", Rajiv Bansal, civil aviation secretary said while speaking at the CAPA India Aviation Summit.

Bansal mentioned that the first and second steps of holding roadshows for the divestment of AIESL and the second step of approval from the group of ministers are completed. The final approval from the Alternative Mechanism for Disinvestment, a top ministerial panel, is awaited following which the expressions of interest will be invited, as per a report by Financial Express

AIESL, AIASL, and AAAL were subsidiaries of Air India when the government owned it. However, they were not part of Air India's privatisation. The Tata group took control of Air India from the government in January last year.

The divestment of Alliance Air has been in the works since the middle of last year but there hasn’t been any formal EOI so far.