Air India Express' Boeing 737-8 Max honours Ratan Tata with unique call sign
NEW DELHI: To mark the 88 th birth anniversary of the former Chairman Emeritus of the Tata Group, Ratan Naval Tata, the Call Sign (Registration Plate) of the 51 st 737-8 Max aircraft of Air India Express, which took off from the Boeing manufacturing unit at Seattle to Delhi on Saturday morning, will have letters inscribed on the plate VT-RNT. Indias aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, has given its nod for the move. VT was allotted to India for its Call Sign plate by the International Telecommunication Union while RNT is an acronym for industrialist Ratan Naval Tata. The 180-seater with four sets of Flight Captains and Flying Officers took off from Seattle on Friday morning without any passengers, a source said. Billed as 'The Visionary Aircraft, it will fly via Iceland and Kuwait before terminating at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on Monday. This would be the first AI Express aircraft which will be a Line Fit one, which means it will be customised completely as per the requirements of the airline. The cabin interiors, as well as the exterior livery design are as per the airline standards were done at the manufacturing facility for this aircraft, the source said. In the case of all the previous Max aircraft that reached the airline from the US,all these aspects were carried out at the MRO facilities across the country. The Tata Group took over the beleaguered Air India and Air India Express in January 2022. The operational integration and legal merger of Air India Express and AirAsia India into one entity took place on October 1, 2024. Incidentally, an initiative to have a special registration plate was done by Air Asia India in the past for JRD Tata, with the letters - VT-JRD. It was called `The Pioneer Aircraft'. Post-merger, this aircraft too now finds a place in the fleet of Air India Express. So, we will shortly be operating two aircraft with special number plates, another source said. Ratan Tata was born on December 28, 1937 in Mumbai and passed away on October 9, 2024. He is the nephew of J R D Tata, who founded Indias first airline, Tata Airlines (later Air India) in 1932.
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