By Abhijith Ganapavaram
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Air India CEO Campbell Wilson will step down as chair of the airline’s low-cost subsidiary Air India Express and be replaced by chief commercial officer Nipun Aggarwal, a memo said on Tuesday, as a multi-billion dollar restructuring of the former state-owned airline continues.
Wilson will also be replaced on the board of Air India Express by Basil Kwauk, Air India’s COO. Aggarwal and Kwauk will retain their existing roles, the memo sent by Wilson showed.
Air India is in the midst of a turnaround strategy two years after Tata Group took control. The group merged four airlines into two – the namesake full-service brand and Express, which merged with AirAsia India last year to create a bigger airline, and has refreshed leadership across both carriers.
“With this structural work largely complete, the task at hand now to fully leverage and optimize the Group fleet, network, sales, distribution and loyalty assets,” Wilson said in the memo seen by Reuters and confirmed by an Air India Express spokesperson.
Aggarwal joined Air India in January 2022 after spearheading the acquisition of the carrier by Tata and has been responsible for several functions including aircraft acquisition, financing and strategy. Reuters reported last month Air India is exploring a multi-billion dollar order for dozens of widebody jets.
However, jet delivery delays have complicated the airline’s turnaround efforts and have forced it to operate older jets longer than planned, increasing maintenance costs and slowing its modernization and expansion drive, even as air travel booms.
After Bloomberg News reported that China has ordered its airlines not to take further deliveries of Boeing aircraft amid a tariff war, an industry source told Reuters Air India may be interested in acquiring jets snubbed by China for its low-cost carrier but warned that the situation was fluid.
Air India and Boeing were not immediately available for a comment. Air India Express, whose main strategy is to complement its parent on its routes, declined to comment.
Express has a fleet of over 100 aircraft, comprising 68 Boeing 737s and 36 Airbus A320s. It expects to add about 15 aircraft to its fleet in the present fiscal year, which began on April 1, with some procured from Air India.
(Reporting by Abhijith Ganapavaram and Ananta Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and David Evans)
