BS People: Pawan Arora

Into the headwind

It isn’t just controversy that Pawan Arora has got into early in his stint at Air India Express. He has also very quickly got into his job — and a tough one it is at that.  Arora has joined the low-cost arm of national carrier Air India as chief operating officer (COO) at a time when the airline is still recovering from the Mangalore crash.  His job started with field visits to get acquainted with the ground realities and determine what could be done to make Air India Express more profitable.

His stint will be much more difficult than previous COOs of AI Express, not because he is the first outsider to be appointed to the post, but because he has to start low-cost domestic operations with limited resources — the parent company has an acute cash shortage.

As if that isn’t enough, Arora has been at the centre of controversy over his appointment. There have been complains about him not being capable enough for the job, which has been contested by the airline. As of now, Arora has to reply to a letter from the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) over the questions that have been raised about his appointment.

Arora, who has been with the Indian Air Force for 18 years, has over 11,000 hours of flying experience on more than 25 types of aeroplanes, including Boeing 737s & Airbus 320s. After leaving the air force, he served in various capacities at Jet Airways, Paramount Airways, Kingfisher Airlines and IndiGo.

His responsibilities included project management, cockpit crew performance and productivity, flight operations planning, as well as planning and monitoring performance for existing, newly inducted and proposed aircraft. Ironically, Arora has also done a one-year stint at DGCA, where he helped to draft civil aviation regulations on emerging issues. Despite that lift of experience under his wings, Arora is clearly flying into a strong headwind at AI Express.