AIR INDIA - India Flight Ticket, Cheap India Hotel Booking : InfotainmentCenter

Air India is India's national flag carrier. Although air transport was born in India on February 18, 1911 when Henri Piquet, flying a Humber bi-plane, carried mail from Allahabad to Naini Junction, some six miles away, the scheduled services in India, in the real sense, began on October 15, 1932. It was on this day that J.R.D. Tata, the father of Civil Aviation in India and founder of Air India, took off from Drigh Road Airport, Karachi, in a tiny, light single-engined de Havilland Puss Moth on his flight to Mumbai (then known as Bombay) via Ahmedabad.

He landed with his precious load of mail on a grass strip at Juhu. At Mumbai, Neville Vintcent, a former RAF pilot who had come to India from Britain three years earlier on a barn-storming tour, during which he had surveyed a number of possible air routes, took over from J.R.D.Tata and flew the Puss Moth to Chennai (then Madras) via Bellary.

The Maharajah

'We call him a Maharajah for want of a better description. But his blood isn't blue. He may look like royalty, but he isn't royal.' These are the words of Bobby Kooka, the man who conceived the Maharajah.

This now familiar lovable figure first made his appearance in Air India way back in 1946, when Bobby Kooka as Air India's Commercial Director and Umesh Rao, an artist with J.Walter Thompson Ltd., Mumbai, together created the Maharajah.

The Maharajah began merely as a rich Indian potentate, symbolizing graciousness and high living. And somewhere along the line his creators gave him a distinctive personality: his outsized moustache, the striped turban and his aquiline nose.

What began as an attempt as a design for an inflight memo pad grew to take Air India's sales and promotional messages to millions of travellers across the world. Today, this naughty diminutive Maharajah of Air India has become a world figure. He can be a lover boy in Paris, a sumo wrestler in Tokyo, a pavement artist, a Red Indian, a monk... he can effortlessly flirt with the beauties of the world. And most importantly, he can get away with it all. Simply because he is the Maharajah!

He has completed 56 years and become the most recognizable mascot the world over. His antics, his expressions, his puns have allowed Air India to promote its services with a unique panache and an unmatched sense of subtle humour. In fact he has won numerous national and international awards for Air India for humour and originality in publicity.

And as with all great men, he too has had his critics. But the millions of travellers whose lives he has touched far outnumber them. In fact, to them, the Maharajah with his inimitable style, charm and wit is a very real person. He's almost like a friend to every Air India traveller. A friend who reaches out with warmth and hospitality, even to the farthest corners of the world.

Browse through our collection of popular advertisements, where the familiar figure of the Maharajah has been widely used.