Two million Aircel subscribers have reportedly ported their mobile numbers to Indian market leader Airtel in the two weeks since the former filed for bankruptcy with the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). According to the Economic Times, 1.5 million of those subscribers were located in Tamil Nadu. Rival Vodafone India, for its part, was cited as saying that more than one million Aircel subscribers have ported to its network in two weeks.
TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database notes that debt-laden Aircel agreed a merger deal with Reliance Communications (RCOM) in September 2016, but prolonged delays in securing permission for the tie-up eventually led to the collapse of the deal, some twelve months later. Malaysian parent company Maxis eventually pulled the plug on the stricken cellco on 28 February 2018.