TIMELINE-Air India strives to revive its fortunes with Tata money

(Updates with plane order) Feb 14 (Reuters) - Air India is carving out an ambitious renaissance under the Tata Group conglomerate, which regained control last year after the airline was nationalised nearly seven decades ago. The airline on Tuesday placed landmark orders for 470 jetliners from both Airbus and Boeing as it looks to take on domestic rivals such as IndiGo and international competitors including Emirates. Tata in November announced the merger of Air India with Vistara, a joint venture with Singapore Airlines, to cement Air India as India's largest international carrier and second largest in the domestic market after IndiGo. Here is Air India's timeline, which includes financial troubles, a drop in reputation and Tata's plans to restore it. Year Event 1932 Entrepreneur J.R.D Tata, the first Indian to receive a commercial pilot's license, forms the airline, India's first. 1946 Tata Airlines is converted into a public entity and renamed Air-India. The Maharajah mascot also makes his first appearance. 1953 Air India is nationalised and splits into a domestic airline and an international carrier. April 2005 Air India launches low-cost carrier Air India Express April National carriers Air India and Indian Airlines are 2007* merged into a single airline July 2009 The airline appoints State Bank of India to prepare a roadmap for recovery after years of losses under state control and emergence of new players April 2012 India approves a $5.8 billion bailout for Air India, which was to be received by 2020 March 2018 India plans to sell a controlling stake, along with roughly $5.1 billion of the carrier's debt June 2018 India shelves a plan to sell a 76% stake due to lack of interest from bidders December India decides to sell 100% of its stake after 2019 failing to find takers for its offer of 76% and full debt October The government gets two bids after extending the 2020 deadline several times September India's finance ministry says Air India has 2021 received financial bids from Tata Sons and Ajay Singh, promoter of budget airline SpiceJet October India's government announces Tata Sons as the 2021 winning bidder for its 100% stake in Air India, after the conglomerate bid 180 billion Indian rupees ($2.18 billion) January Tata regains control of Air India 2022 April 2022 Air India proposes to buy the entire equity share capital of low cost carrier AirAsia India, which Tata has a majority stake in and operates with Malaysia's AirAsia X Bhd May 2022 Tata announces appointment of Campbell Wilson, the head of Singapore Airlines' budget carrier Scoot, as Air India's CEO, weeks after appointing N. Chandrasekaran as chairman. October Singapore Airlines says it is in talks with Tata 2022 about a potential merger of Vistara, their joint venture airline, with Air India November AirAsia sells its stake in AirAsia India to Air 2022 India November Tata says it is merging Air India with Vistara, its 2022 joint venture with Singapore Airlines, with Tata holding 74.9% of the combined entity and the latter owning the rest February Tata places a landmark order for 470 Airbus and 2023 Boeing planes *sourced from Britannica (Reporting by Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai and Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Jamie Freed and Mark Potter)