Since the Tata takeover, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation has repeatedly fined Air India over safety and other regulatory violations, including an Rs8mn ($95,000) penalty last year for exceeding flight duty time limits. At home, it is competing in a near-duopoly with IndiGo, which has been boosting its international long-haul routes.

Investigators in India are studying the black boxes of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner after recovering them from the aircraft wreckage to ascertain the cause of last week’s plane crash that left at least 270

Tributes have been paid to a "loved and adored" man who died in a plane crash in India. Ashwin Harrington, 27, from Sudbury, Suffolk, was one of the 242 passengers and crew killed when a London-bound Air India aircraft crashed in Ahmedabad on Thursday.