NEW DELHI: As privatization of the country's flag carrier Air India is on a transformational journey, it seems, until its 'legacy mindset' remains, the Tata Group owned company will find it difficult to reinvent and meta-morphose. One of the primary reasons being the omnipresence of the 'old' Air India within the transiting 'new' Air India's steeped in culture, systems, processes and attitude. This requires a radical overhaul for a metamorphic change to set in.
Air India, under the ownership of Tata Group for over a year and six months, has undergone significant changes in its turnaround and transformation efforts. However, amidst its progress, the airline has also faced major contro-versies, including pilot dissatisfaction, Magadon Airport in Russia leaving scores of passengers stranded on Interna-tional Airports and mishandling of sensitive matters.
Since the acquisition, Tata Group has implemented various measures to revive the struggling airline. These in-clude placing a substantial order for 470 planes and expanding international operations. The Tata Group owns four airlines, namely Air India, Air India Express, AIX Connect, and Vistara (a joint venture with Singapore Airlines). However, the group is currently in the process of merging Air India Express and AIX Connect with Air India, as well as integrating Vistara into the airline.
Previously burdened with financial losses and debt, Air India is now on a comprehensive transformation roadmap aimed at becoming a world-class global airline with an Indian identity. The flag carrier is expanding its fleet and network, enhancing its customer experience, and improving operational reliability.
Last year, Air India unveiled a five-year transformation roadmap called Vihaan.AI, which translates to "dawn of a new era" in Sanskrit. This roadmap outlines specific milestones, focusing on expanding the network and fleet, revitalising the customer experience, improving reliability and punctuality, taking a leadership role in technology, sustainability, and innovation, and investing in top industry talent.
The initial phase, named Taxi, addressed legacy issues on a large-scale and laid the foundation for future growth. The successful completion of this phase marked the beginning of Take Off, the second phase, which in-volves developing the necessary platforms, processes, and systems to achieve excellence.
"To support immediate plans to scale up and grow, Air India last year leased 36 aircraft, including 11 wide-body Boeing 777s and 25 narrow-body Airbus A320 family aircraft. Several of these have already joined Air India's fleet, enabling the airline to densify its domestic route network and expand on international routes," said the airline's spokesperson.
"In less than a year, the airline has ramped, launched or resumed operations to seven destinations outside India and launched flights on 19 international routes and six domestic routes. Some of Air India's newly leased Boeing 777s deployed on North America routes also saw the airline's introduction of a new Premium Economy offering," said the spokesperson.
Campbell Wilson, CEO of Air India, has compared the revival of the airline to a Test match rather than a T20 match, emphasizing the long-term nature of the transformation process.
Air India has been confronted with a series of incidents involving technical glitches, unruly passengers, and vio-lations of regulations, resulting in substantial fines for the airline. While efforts are being made to address these chal-lenges, recent events continue to raise concerns about passenger safety and the airline's overall operations.
One incident took place on June 6 when Air India flight AI173, en route from Delhi to San Francisco, had to make an emergency landing at Magadan airport in Russia due to a technical issue with one of its engines. Passen-gers onboard the flight found themselves stranded as their journey was redirected to Magadan in Siberia. Video footage circulating on Twitter revealed the passengers forced to sleep on the floor of a school in the temporary ac-commodation provided due to the unforeseen circumstances. IANS
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