Along the way in November on a five-year turnaround at Air India, CEO Campbell Wilson reflected on the challenge of privatizing previous national airlines and overseeing one of the biggest jet orders in aviation history.
“At the end of the day, it was still airlines and we still carry people on tubes 10km above ground, so it was progressive,” Wilson told the Financial Times in an interview. “Therefore, we must continue to operate safely and robustly while making all of these changes.”
Seven months later, the safety qualifications of India’s flagship, as well as Wilson’s chief executive record, are under intense scrutiny. Investigators are still investigating why an Air India Flight, bound by London, fell crash in Ahmedabad shortly after takeoff, and are still investigating why it killed more than 290 people.
Whatever Air India’s role, the incident has been a serious blow to the airline and its owner Tata, taking pride in its industrial portfolio, including steel, carmaking and iPhone assembly.
“There’s compensation, legal litigation, client complaints,” said Neelam Matthews, an independent aviation analyst based in New Delhi. “There are higher premiums, at least in the short term, and airfares can go up, very importantly.”
The Indian Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, which leads the investigation with support from its US and UK counterparts, has not shown who or what will be responsible for blaming India’s worst air disaster in nearly 30 years.
Independent experts have questioned the location of the plane’s wing flap, the thrust generated by the engine, and why the landing gear fell in seconds before crashing.
Investigators discovered flight data from the plane and audio recorder in the cockpit. Boeing, who built the 12-year-old 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, is involved in the investigation, as is the GE Aerospace that built the engine.
In another Air India incident on Monday, Dreamliner heading for New Delhi returned to Hong Kong origins shortly after the pilot discovered technical issues when he took off. The plane landed safely, and its passengers were unharmed.
“We need to show resilience,” Tata Chairman N Chandrasekaran told staff at the Gurugram headquarters of the airline near Delhi on Monday. “This incident (in Ahmedabad) must be used as an act of force to build a safer airline.”
Both Air India and Tata provide compensation to the parents and only surviving passengers of the victim who fell crash. Wilson on Thursday gave Sad Dol’s opinion, pledging to put the needs of the victims’ families first, but faced online backlash as it resembles a comment made by American Airlines chief Robert Isom after killing 67 people near Washington in January.
Air India did not respond to requests for further comment.
The crash in Ahmedabad is the biggest crisis in three and a half years since Tata bought the airline from state ownership and began to motivate him to restore the brand’s reputation, which many Indians deemed as national embarrassment.
“The problem for Air India right now is how they respond,” said Andrew Charlton, managing director of aviation advocacy, an air transport and government affairs consultant. “If they respond well, this may be a crux moment that allows them to leave their checkered past behind them, but if they handle it badly, it could be a disaster.”
Founded in 1932 as Tata Airlines by industrialist JRD Tata, the company stopped by Ahmedabad for its first commercial flight, the first commercial flight of the year, from Karachi to Mumbai. After India’s independence, it was nationalised in 1953, suffering from the fate of many state-owned enterprises, and in 2011 it fell into a state of discrepancy that the Indian Secretary and Auditor called it “Dismal.”
When Tata bought the airline back from the state in 2022 for a $2.4 billion deal, Chandrasekaran and former chairman Ratan Tata said they thanked the Indian government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the opportunity and agreed to his vision of making aviation affordable to Indians.
Tata hired Wilson, a New Zealander at Singapore Airlines, where he founded the low-cost airline Scoot. At Air India, Wilson discovered a deep red business, with some planes parked on the ground and raided for spare parts. Its IT system is outdated, airlines still use outdated mainframe booking systems, with some staff using Gmail accounts to run their business, Wilson said.
“There was no job description, no performance management, no outcome management,” he told FT last year. “If there was a problem, we tended to obscure it until it became clear.”
The management installed by Air India’s new Tata has invested $200 million in IT systems, recruited over 9,000 new staff, and ordered bumper orders for 470 new Boeing and Airbus aircraft, turning it into a world-class airline.
That finances began to improve, with revenues increasing and losses narrowing under Wilson. But even before last week’s crash, analysts, regulators and some Air India customers were questioning whether the airline had really changed.
As Air India struggles to secure old parts and new planes amidst delays across the industry, complaints remain on flight delays and cancellations, inadequate food, and the tattered interiors of old aircraft. Akash Vatsa, a passenger on the previous flight of the crashed Dreamliner, posted an online video claiming that the aircraft’s air conditioning and entertainment system in flight was not working.
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Since the acquisition of TATA, India’s Civil Aviation Director has repeatedly fined Air India for safety and other regulations, including a penalty of Rs8MN ($95,000) last year for exceeding the flight time limit last year. At home, he competes with his close relatives with Indigo. This is driving international long distance routes.
In a speech to staff on Monday, Tata’s chairman Chandrasekaran claimed that the airline will “get over this,” adding, “Our job is to bring Air India to a better place.”
Aviation analysts reserve their judgment. “This will be tragic and difficult for an airline that has no history of Air India and has not tried to climb from there,” said independent transportation consultant John Strickland. “It’s important to know what causes the crash.”
