The Indian cricket team will now fly the Maharaja on their domestic and international travel.

This follows a Memorandum of Understanding between Air India and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the national governing body for cricket in the country. The deal is for a period of one year and will see the airline offering special fares and free baggage allowance to the team.

The MoU also includes the travel of umpires, match referees and national selectors on official duty, TV crew, BCCI officials for various committee meetings, Annual General Meetings and any other official travel, the airline said in a statement. Financial and other details of the agreement were not immediately available.

Air India will also fly Indian cricketers of both national and other State cricket teams on domestic and international networks across the globe. The MoU is the first agreement that has been signed by the airline since Ashwani Lohani took over as its Chairman and Managing Director earlier this month.

This is Air India’s second attempt at sponsoring cricketers. In 2011, it was a sponsor of the Mumbai Indian cricket team in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Now Jet Airways and Etihad sponsor the Mumbai Indian cricket team in IPL.

Harbhajan Singh, Suresh Raina, VVS Laxman and several other former Indian test cricketers are currently employed by Air India.

In many ways, Air India is following in the footsteps of the Dubai-based Emirates which has been sponsoring sports in both the UAE and around the world for over twenty years, beginning with the first powerboat race held in Dubai in 1987.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline & Group, sees sponsorships as vital to the airline’s marketing strategy. “We believe sponsorships are one of the best ways to connect with our passengers. They allow us to share and support their interests and to build a closer relationship with them,” he had said in a statement earlier.

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