Air India will have a single code by March next year on which it will be operating all its domestic and international flights and selling their tickets.

The national carrier now has two codes -- AI of Air India and IC of erstwhile Indian Airlines, which have to be integrated not only as part of the merger process, but also to join the global airlines platform -- Star Alliance.

Once the project is completed and Air India joins the Star Alliance, it would help the carrier save an estimated whopping USD 180-190 billion over ten years through advantages of cooperation with the network partners across the globe.

"We have entered into collaboration with aviation IT major SITA, which will take about 10 to 11 months to integrate the operations of two different airline under one code. The system would start functioning from March 2011," a senior airline official said.

"The Departure Control System (DCS) would be put in place by September, by October its testing would start and by mid-December migration of data would be over and the whole system would be tested for about two months," he said.

Erstwhile Air India, which was operating on international sectors and Indian Airlines, which was operating primarily on domestic sectors, were merged to form National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL) in 2007.

But due to differences in the IT platforms, including those relating to ticketing, and programmes used by the two carriers, "we were facing difficulties in operating flights under single code of AI. As a result, the entire purpose of merger has been defeated," he added.

Keeping this in view, Air India entered into an agreement with Societe Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautiques (SITA) for a period of 10 years to provide the required system for the merger.

The airline has started a six-week training programme for 350 staffers related to internet booking, departure control system, loyalty programmes and other departments dealing directly with the travellers.

"From Monday last, experts from a private IT firm have started training them in batches in Mumbai," he added.

He said due to integration and computerisation "no one would be losing their jobs".

"The surplus staff would be retrained and deployed to another department. Also, being the government enterprise, we don't have a policy to retrench people," he said.