By Abhijith Ganapavaram

NEW DELHI, March 25 (Reuters) - Air India said on

Tuesday that all staff, including top management, would travel

in economy from April 1 to free up seats for paying customers,

as the airline works on improving its image following criticism

over flight delays.

Staff would be upgraded to premium economy and business

class seats on a flight only if these remained unsold 50 minutes

prior to departure, The Times of India said in a report,

confirmed by the airline.

"With this, we want to ensure that our premium seats... for

which we are seeing huge demand - are available for booking to

our customers first, demonstrating a culture of

customer-centricity in the new Air India," a spokesperson said.

India is among the world's fastest-growing major aviation

markets, and its domestic air passenger traffic has been growing

at an annual rate of 10-12% over the past 10 years, according to

the government.

The formerly state-owned Air India was taken over by the

Tata Group in 2022, and merged with Vistara - a joint venture

between the Tatas and Singapore Airlines - last year.

Billions of dollars have already been spent on an ambitious

turnaround for the carrier, which involved ordering new jets,

changing its logo, and upgrading interiors for over half its

fleet, since the 2022 takeover.

Reuters reported last week that Air India was exploring a

multi-billion dollar order for dozens of widebody jets from

Boeing ( BA ) and Airbus.