When Air India chief executive Campbell Wilson stood in front of a camera and outlined his airline’s response to the fatal crash of one its Boeing 787-8s in Ahmedabad on 12 June, his voice sometimes broke with emotion.
Speaking against a grey background, Wilson – who had been on a flight to Paris for the upcoming international air show when he was told news of the crash – made it clear that “our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of our passengers, crew members, their families and loved ones”.
He added: “I know that there are many questions, and at this stage, I won’t be able to answer all of them.”
It is a moment that airline executives prepare for, but also one that only a small minority tend to experience, given the industry’s safety record.
It was confirmed later in the day that there was one survivor among the 242 passengers and crew on the London Gatwick-bound Dreamliner, with significant further casualties on the ground.
The cause of the crash will be established in due course.
In the meantime, Air India, its leader Wilson and the wider Indian airline sector are responding to, and reflecting on, an incident that has abruptly darkened the mood in a country where optimism regarding aviation was arguably unmatched anywhere in the world.
Indeed, only 10 days earlier, the global aviation sector was gathered in Delhi for this year’s IATA AGM – the industry’s showpiece annual gathering. While low-cost carrier IndiGo was the event’s host, Air India had a significant presence, taking the opportunity to speak to media and celebrate a number of new partnerships.
Notably, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi – who visited the scene of the crash within hours of it happening – was a speaker at the AGM on 2 June, describing the vast potential for air transport growth in the country.
In that context, Wilson and Air India used to AGM to tell the compelling story of Air India’s “Everest” of turnarounds, from a failing state-owned carrier just a few years ago to the modern global connector it is on the journey to becoming under Tata Group ownership.
The tasks faced by Wilson when he became Air India’s chief executive in 2022 were overwhelming in number and scope, he reminded journalists during a roundtable discussion.
“There were 30 aircraft on the ground for want of spare parts, including quite a number of widebody aircraft,” Wilson recalled, while also showing journalists a photo taken in 2020 of a dilapidated office in Air India’s old headquarters. “There had been no recruitment since 1999 of non-flying staff, so the average age of the employees was 54 with a compulsory retirement age of 58.
“Reservation systems, ERP systems, all of the IT infrastructure was just obsolete, such that people were even using Gmail to communicate because the company e-mail was so bad.
“On board the aircraft, the seats had not been updated for about 15 years and they were obsolete. There were no spare parts, so it was just quite dire.
“Everything else that goes into making a company was just under-invested.”
STRONG PROGRESS
In the period since, Wilson explained, Air India has been “firing on all cylinders” and has “pretty much completed all of the things that are necessary to prepare the foundation for the ambition”.
That progress includes a new corporate headquarters, investments in new maintenance and training facilities, new IT systems, a big recruitment drive, massive aircraft orders, the retrofitting of Air India’s fleet with new interiors, new on-board products and uniforms for its crew, and the merging of AirAsia India into Air India Express, and Vistara into Air India.
Wilson highlighted aircraft retrofits as the biggest outstanding challenge in the business’s five-year transformation programme (the first stage of which had been making sure the airline survived, he said).
The investments are showing through in Air India’s financial performance under Tata ownership, Wilson said, while NPS ratings and on-time performance have been trending in the right direction.
His enthusiasm for the country’s potential, meanwhile, is driven by the growing demand for passenger travel in India.
“We have more to do,” Wilson observed of the transformation effort. “I guess it will be a journey of a few bumps and grinds along the way, whether it’s geopolitics or whatever else, but we really are quite optimistic about the future for a few reasons, [but] mainly because of the India story.
“This is already the third largest domestic air travel market in the world. It’s growing at 8 to 10% per year, but it has a propensity to travel one-fifth that of China.
“So if the Indian traveller starts travelling at the same rate as the Chinese traveller, it’s going to be enormous.”
In the aftermath of the crash of Air India flight AI171, that potential still exists.
For Air India and Wilson, there will be a wait to discover what caused the crash, and a lot of healing to do within and outside the organisation regardless of the outcome of investigations.
Conquering the Everest of turnarounds was never going to be easy. For now, reaching the summit will not be the airline’s priority.