Air India is a government owned national airline of India. Administered by the National Aviation Company of India (NACIL), Airline operates a worldwide network of passenger and cargo services. Air India Airlines has its main bases at Indira Gandhi International Airport of Delhi and Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shijavi International Airport. Based on passengers carried stats, Air India is the second biggest airline in India, after Jet Airways. In domestic market, Air India Airlines is the third largest behind Jet Airways (including subsidiary low cost carrier JetLite) and Kingfisher Airways (including subsidiary low cost airline Kingfisher Red).

Established by J.R.D Tata in 1932 as Tata Airlines, a division of Tata Sons Ltd. (now Tata Group), Air India came into existence on 29th July, 1946 as a public limited company. In 1948, the Government of India acquired 49 per cent of the Air India Airlines. The airline was granted the status to operate international service from India under the name Air India International. On 8th June 1962, the name of the airline was officially changed to Air India. Further, on 11 June 1962, Air India Airlines became the world's first all-jet carrier.

Air India operates flights to 28 international destinations and 11 domestic destinations. Air India Airlines serves 17 international across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East itself, and other 11 international destinations across the globe through code sharing agreement with alliance airlines. Air India airline has codeshare agreements with 12 international airlines, namely Air Mauritius, Austrian Airlines, Egyptair, Emirates Airline, Kuwait Airways, Indian Airlines, Lufthansa, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Swiss International Airlines, Thai Airways International and Turkish Airlines.

Air India has a fleet of 31 flights including Airbus A 310, Airbus A 330, Boeing 747 and Boeing 777 aircraft. Besides these, Air India Express, the low cost subsidiary of Air India Airlines operates a fleet of 20 Boeing 737 ? 800 aircraft. Based in Mumbai, Air India Express operates services mainly to the Middle East countries and several domestic destinations. Presently, Air India Express connects 30 destinations including both domestic and international destinations.

Air India Express airline was established in May 2004 and began its operations on 29th April 2005 with an inaugural fright service from Thiruvananthapuram to Abu Dhabi. According to sources, since its inception Air India Express is making huge profits on most of the routes. Air India Express has plans to expand its services to some destinations in Europe and America.