Was Air India CEO picked with eye on merger with Vistara?
Scoot’s Campbell Wilson may not have been the Tatas’ first choice to lead Air India, but his appointment fuels speculation that a merger between AI and Vistara is on the cards.
Why read this story?
Editor's note: The irony didn’t escape anyone. A week after Air India said Campbell Wilson, chief executive officer at Singapore’s low-cost carrier Scoot, will take over as its new CEO and managing director, IndiGo also announced a leadership change. Come October, India’s largest low-cost carrier will be led by Pieter Elbers, who currently heads KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, the full-service carrier from the Netherlands. “A CEO of a low-cost airline is going to lead Air India, a full-service airline that was India’s flag carrier. And IndiGo, a LCC, has got a CEO from a full-service airline that is a flag carrier. Did anyone get the files mixed?” asks a former Air India senior executive, requesting anonymity. He may have been joking but in IndiGo’s case, industry experts understand its choice. The airline has ambitions to expand aggressively on long-haul routes, including those to Europe that will alter its low-cost model. But how does Wilson fit the bill for Air India? He isn’t controversial like Ilker Ayci, the Tata group’s original choice for the top post. This is what we wrote about the …
More in Business
You may also like
The 72 hours that saw IndiGo unravel
A crew crunch, new regulatory norms and simmering discontent push India’s biggest airline into its biggest crisis yet, one that could seriously dent its reputation for reliability.
IndiGo has a forex headache
India’s largest airline surprisingly doesn’t seem to have a hedging strategy that is good enough to guard against a weakening rupee. This could potentially clip its wings.
How SpiceJet and India’s legal system nearly killed the aircraft leasing business
Interminable delays and multiple out-of-court settlements later, the world’s leading lessors have tweaked their India playbook—stiffer terms, higher rentals. The fallout has hit aviation startups hard.