Air India CEO says refurbishment of existing aircraft and restoration of grounded planes is slower than expected

At the ongoing CAPA India Aviation Summit, Campbell Wilson, Air India CEO says privatization and turnaround of Air India at the same time is unprecedented in aviation. To elucidate on the developments in the airline since its privatization, he says that more than 20 grounded aircrafts were restored to service and the all the grounded wide body aircrafts will be restored in the next few months. However, the refurbishment of existing aircraft and restoration of grounded planes is slower than expected due to supply chain issues.

The airline is looking at further hiring, as its on-time performance is affected due to a shortfall in cabin crew. For this, it made investments in training academy for pilots, cabin crew and is confident that it shall be able to deploy and induct the talent it requires.

Furthermore, Tata Business Excellence team is diagnosing the strengths and weaknesses of each business and acknowledges that Air India has lot more work to do to get more females into the workforce. Currently the airline is consolidating 63 Air India premises into a single campus in Gurgaon and has greater aspirations for Air Asia in trying to make it one of the five best airlines globally.