Tatas bet on executives from group companies to turn Air India around

On Friday, Tatas announced revamp of the Air India board when the airline's functional directors stepped down and execs from various group companies took charge

Tata Sons have started restructuring Air India, airline it acquired last year from the government.

The conglomerate, which has presence in sectors ranging from steel to digital, is banking on talent and expertise from its allied business to turn around the loss making carrier.

On Friday, Tatas announced restructuring of the Air India board when functional directors of the airline stepped down and executives from various Tata group companies took charge.

The new owners have also started renegotiating multiple contracts of the airline to bring down the cost of operations while starting the work for a merger of AirAsia India and Air India Express.

However, a CEO of the airline is yet to be appointed more than a month after former Turkish Airlines CEO Ilker Ayci declined the offer to join Air India as its chief executive officer.

In the absence of a CEO, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran has been overseeing the company. The existing functional directors, who are Air India veterans and were overseeing finance, commercial, human resource and operations have been appointed as advisors to Chandrasekaran.

The company gave charge of the crucial commercial department to Nipun Aggarwal, currently a senior vice-president at Tata Sons. An investment banker by profession, Aggarwal played a key role in the year long process of Tata’s takeover of Air India.

The company also appointed Suresh Dutt Tripathi as chief human resource officer. Tripathi earlier headed HR at Tata Steel. Rajesh Dogra, a TCS veteran who headed the Passport Seva program, is now head of customer experience and ground handling at Air India while Satya Ramaswamy, head of strategic initiatives at Tata Digital is now the chief digital and technology officer at the airline. This is the first time the airline will have a chief digital officer as it looks to improve its tech backend.

“Technology will be a key focus area of the airline. The group has studied examples of most technologically superior airlines to understand the best practices and will implement them,” a person aware of the development said. A team from Tata Consultancy Services is working on to integrate the airline’s software with the One Tata Operating Network (OTON) and on boarding it to the Tata Neu app- the group’s super app.

Simultaneously, a team consisting of executives from Taj Hospitality group and led by Sandeep Verma- who earlier headed in-flight services for Vistara is working to improve the airline’s soft image through better in-flight amenities.

In February, in his maiden address to employees of the airline, Chandrasekaran had identified four core areas on which Air India will focus- providing best-in-class customer service, making it the most technologically advanced airline in the world, upgrading and modernising the fleet, and hospitality - both in-flight and off-flight.

The group has also taken advantage of its large scale of operations (Vistara, AirAsia India, Air India, and Air India Express) to renegotiate contracts. Sources said that it has recently negotiated its jet fuel contract which will be cheaper by at least 8-10 percent than the previous one.

It is also negotiating a contract with booking platform provider Navitaire which will host its integrated low cost business of Air India Express and AirAsia India.

A person involved in Air India’s restructuring while talking about the appointments pointed out that due to the group’s presence across multiple business, the Tatas are in a unique position in the aviation industry to bring the best of talents. “You need expertise on taxation structure- you have the best of finance minds at Tata Steel, or there is a need for digital expertise; the group can draw in talents from TCS. Air India will gain from these. There is no airline in the world which is in such a position,” he said.