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.
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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 …
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