India News | Cake-cutting, Quiz Marks 90th Anniversary of JRD Tata's Maiden Flight

Kochi, Oct 15 (PTI) Inflight cake-cutting and quiz contests were some of the slew of activities organised by Air India Express (AIE) on Saturday in 58 of its flights across its networks to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the first maiden commercial flight by J R D Tata in 1932.

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The celebrations began at 8 AM on a Kochi-Muscat flight and on 57 other flights of the airline, a wholly owned subsidiary of Air India (AI), till 5 PM, an AIE spokesperson said.

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This is the first major function held by the airline after AIE and AI were taken over by the Tata Group which had in 1932 founded Tata Airlines that was later renamed as Air India.

On October 15, 1932 J R D Tata on his own had flown the first flight of Tata Airlines carrying air mail from Karachi to Bombay's Juhu aerodrome.

To commemorate the same, AIE during the day held in-flight announcements by the pilots, cake-cutting, quiz contests on 58 of its flights and distributed cakes and sweets to all the passengers, the spokesperson said.

The celebrations began on the IX 443 flight from Kochi to Muscat whose eight member crew was led by Captain Samarth Niteen Jadhav and First Officers Siyaf Kannamkulath Salim and Kaneez Fatima.

Specially designed cakes with the number 90, a picture of J R D Tata and the message -- 'Air India Express salutes the pioneer' -- below it, were cut in all the 58 flights, the spokesperson said.

Winners of the on-board quiz contest were given exclusive AIE merchandise, including red caps emblazoned with the Air India Express name and model aircrafts.

A similar contest was also held on its Instagram account, the spokesperson said.

Air India and AIE were taken over by the Tata Group in January this year and were being operated through a special purpose vehicle -- Talace Private Ltd -- after the Central government acquired a majority stake in the national carrier in 1953.

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