The Air India Building is a 24-storey commercial tower on Marine Drive

Marine Drive

Marine Drive is a 3-kilometre-long boulevard in South Mumbai in the city of Mumbai. It is a 'C'-shaped six-lane concrete road along the coast, which is a natural bay. The road links Nariman Point to Babulnath and Malabar Hill. Marine Drive is situated over reclaimed land facing west-south-west...

 in Nariman Point

Nariman Point

Nariman Point is Mumbai's premier business district and country's first central business district. It was named after Khursheed Framji Nariman, a Parsi visionary. The area is situated on land reclaimed from the sea. It had the distinction of having the highest commercial real estate rental space...

, Mumbai

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. The building serves as the corporate headquarters for the airline, Air India

Air India

Air India is the flag carrier airline of India. It is part of the government of India owned Air India Limited . The airline operates a fleet of Airbus and Boeing aircraft serving Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. Its corporate office is located at the Air India Building at Nariman...

.

History

The Air India Building was completed in 1974, and is owned by the airline. It occupies one of Mumbai's choicest real estate locations in Nariman Point. Located on Marine Drive, facing the Arabian Sea

Arabian Sea

The Arabian Sea is a region of the Indian Ocean bounded on the east by India, on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between Cape Guardafui in northeastern Somalia and Kanyakumari in India...

, the building is a landmark on Mumbai's skyline with the airline's trademark centaur

Centaur

In Greek mythology, a centaur or hippocentaur is a member of a composite race of creatures, part human and part horse...

 icon on its top. The centrally air-conditioned building was the first in India to have an escalator

Escalator

An escalator is a moving staircase – a conveyor transport device for carrying people between floors of a building. The device consists of a motor-driven chain of individual, linked steps that move up or down on tracks, allowing the step treads to remain horizontal.Escalators are used around the...

, carrying customers from the street-level to the airline's main booking office.

As of June 2011, the building is occupied by Air India and Tata Consultancy Services

Tata Consultancy Services

Tata Consultancy Services Limited is a global IT services, business solutions and outsourcing company headquartered in Mumbai, India. It is the largest provider of information technology in Asia and second largest provider of business process outsourcing services in India...

.

The building was one of the targets of the 1993 Bombay bombings. A car bomb

Car bomb

A car bomb, or truck bomb also known as a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device , is an improvised explosive device placed in a car or other vehicle and then detonated. It is commonly used as a weapon of assassination, terrorism, or guerrilla warfare, to kill the occupants of the vehicle,...

exploded in the afternoon on 12 March 1993 in the basement garage of the building. Almost 20 people were killed in the attack and the offices of the Bank of Oman just above the garage were destroyed. Security has since been significantly tightened at the building.