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many more opportunities for us than
we have aircraft.”
Q But what about staffing?
“Air India hadn’t been recruiting
anyone except flying crews for 15
years. So, there was a big suc-
cession and capability gap to be
rectified, especially in the context
of dramatic growth. There is a lot
on the plate in the transformation of
Air India. It’s certainly the biggest
aviation turnaround ever that I am
aware of.”
Q The ramp up is going to be
significant and has challenges.
Over the next eighteen months,
we take 81 aircraft so there’s a lot
that has to go into that. Some of
these aircraft have already been
together to make that work, but I Which indicates that it is certainly pushed back so that’s why there’s
think from an airline perspective, part of the Indian culture and pos- so many in such a short space of
from a shareholders’ perspective, sible for an Indian entity to achieve time because of delivery constraint.
from the national government per- this. But it will take time. The good But we are recruiting 550 new cabin
spective people are quite aligned news is that with the backing of crew a month, 50 to 60 pilots per
behind the opportunities in front of Tata, all resources are being put in month, just to ensure we’ve got the
us. It’s just a matter of execution. place for that to happen.” capacity to operate this fleet but
there’s also a large number of air-
“ look like? than a dozen widebodies that have
Q What is your goal for Air India?
craft - more than 20 including more
Q What will network expansion
been long grounded, not because
of COVID but simply because the
“We have many opportunities from
airline didn’t have the money to pay
India with narrowbodies, like flying
for parts and so it was robbing parts
to Kenya or Singapore and also
It is our intention to be
from existing aircraft to keep flying.
recognized once again
craft coming online, we plan more
frequencies to Australia, initially to
as one of the best Central Europe. With more air- We’ve restored nearly all - there’s
Sydney and Melbourne and further
two still to come - but some of those
airlines in the world. It destinations.” [Currently, Air India aircraft have, I think, eventually
can clearly be done, flies daily non-stop from Delhi to required four or five thousand parts
Indian brands, not least both Sydney and Melbourne with to get back up into the air. You go
Boeing 787s.] “We have grown
to a 777 cockpit, there’s not even
Taj Hotels, which are our network a lot over the last nine any pilot seats. And so that’s been
also part of Tata Group, months, with five new airports being a long painful journey to get these
online now in Europe alone. The
aircraft back into an air-worthy
are at the forefront of question for us is not: Do we have condition and not helped at all by
service by any an opportunity at a certain destina- the supply chain constraints. So,
we’re all feeling it. Thankfully, we’re
tion? The question is: Which of the
standard anywhere many opportunities we have has the all feeling it so we’re all out in the
in the world. highest priority? Overall, there are same place but it’s not fun..
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