Air-India and Indian Airlines are headed towards a critical integration, a move towards the emergence of a single national carrier.

Come winter, prime operations such as scheduling, pricing, marketing and sales are set to be integrated.

"The operational integration could be seen as a move towards the emergence of one strong national carrier with a combined fleet of around 100 aircraft like any other mega international airline. This has become a necessity to keep costs under control, as well as keeping in mind passenger convenience. It is also in line with the global trend," an Air India board member said.

In a recent convention held in Malaysia, Sunil Arora, managing director of A-I and chairman & managing director of Indian Airlines, said, "As a result of a recent initiative to bring about this synergy, from this winter, the national carriers will co-ordinate their efforts in scheduling, pricing marketing and sales." A copy of his speech is with Business Standard.

The idea is to present a much stronger and a unified front in the market. Individually, each national carrier is not too large but together exercise a dominant influence on the Indian air market and a sizeable share of around 30 per cent of the Indian international market, Arora said at the convention.

An A-I spokesperson said, "The integration will be rolled out in phases. In the first phase, we have taken up the 13 common stations in which AI and IA operates."

On the pricing front, while two products are different and the fares of one cannot be matched with the other, various promotional schemes will be jointly designed. A common frequent flyer scheme has been decided on between the two airlines.

Free interlining between two airlines is being rolled out wherein a passenger holding an A-I ticket can fly Indian Airlines whenever the need arises.

The marketing and sales divisions of the two airlines will function in tandem. The move assumes significance particularly keeping in mind the fact that the two airlines have been competing with each other till date, eating into each other's market share.

The integration of the scheduling operations in routes such as Chennai-Singapore and Kerala-Gulf sectors, will essentially mean that the frequency of flights of two airlines will be adjusted and re-scheduled in such a way that one airline complements the other and there is no overlapping of flights.