Air India’s CEO is reshaping the airline from the ground up

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW | Let’s face it. Air India hasn’t typically had the greatest reputation for service and product offering. When I last experienced the carrier on a long-haul flight, I awarded a mere 2.5 stars for the journey from Delhi to Sydney. But mindful of its own future, Air India is catching up – and wants to become a tier one global carrier, for real.

For those in charge, it’s no easy feat. Air India has many legacy systems and processes in place that need reversing and replacing. But a recent acquisition and merger is helping to fast-track those goals, along with a significant investment by Air India into new cabin products.

Steering the ship is Campbell Wilson, Air India’s Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Former CEO of Scoot and former Vice President at Singapore Airlines, Wilson understands both the full service and cost-conscious markets. Now, he’s tasked with turning Air India into the next Singapore Airlines, so to speak.

Wilson and I catch up at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit in Brisbane for an exclusive chat about that monumental task.

Air India’s future is modelled after Vistara

Air India can trace its history back to 1932. But in 2015, a rival was born: Vistara. That competitor positioned itself as a premium choice for Indian travellers, at a time when Air India had some catching up to do on the customer service front.

I ask Wilson about that general perception of Vistara being the more premium and modern choice, compared to Air India. Without hesitation, Wilson admits that ‘oh yeah, absolutely,’ that’s the case. And it’s something he’s been mindful of while at Air India.

This notion of Vistara’s superiority ‘wasn’t just the perception, it was the reality. Vistara had built a very good airline that was very well regarded, very well known in India, (but) not quite so well known outside India.’ Fast-forward to 2022, and Tata Group would acquire Vistara. In the same year, Tata also made an acquisition of Air India. Then, in November 2024, Vistara was merged into Air India and operated its last Vistara-branded flight. Now, operations of both airlines continue as a single carrier: Air India.

Wilson explains that ‘one of the reasons of bringing the two organisations together is to catalyse and accelerate the development of Air India.’ Rather than rebranding Air India as Vistara, Air India is instead using the influence of Vistara to make its own brand better and secure its future as a premium global carrier.

To position Air India for a stronger future, the carrier is using ‘the Vistara practices, processes, procedures, knowledge (and) experience, that then becomes the new Air India. Or indeed, the new Air India adds to what was Vistara. So that’s very much the focus.’

Between the two airlines, ‘we spent 18 months harmonising all of the operating procedures.’ That includes ‘all of the manuals, all of the regulatory underpinnings, all of the systems, to essentially the Vistara level,’ but which would continue solely under the Air India brand.’

‘Our modus operandi going into all of these was start with Vistara, and only if there’s a need to be different, be different.’

How much does IndiGo’s expansion affect Air India’s future?

With Vistara now folded into Air India, rival airline IndiGo is an Indian carrier pushing for a strong future of its own. While not part of a global alliance (Air India, on the other hand, participates in Star Alliance), IndiGo has its strengths. For instance, a codeshare partnership with Qantas, in connection with the Roo’s flights into Bengaluru and Delhi.

‘Clearly, they are a competitor,’ Wilson observes. ‘They have a significant domestic market share and a reasonable short-haul international market share. But the context is that we’re in a market that is large and fast growing. It’s a market that, in aggregate, the Indian carriers – certainly on a domestic context – have been punching below their weight.’

‘I think there’s plenty of room for the Indian carriers to grow,’ Wilson continues. ‘But actually, our more important competitors are the guys outside, not the guys inside.’ Wilson refers to international airlines based outside of India, which serve India as part of their broader network.

As for competitors based on home turf, ‘Air India is still the largest carrier. It’s still the only carrier that serves North America. It’s still the only carrier that really serves Europe, one minor operation to Istanbul aside. (Air India) is the only Indian airline that serves Australia. So there’s plenty of opportunity for both of us to grow.’

For Air India, ‘we are going to focus a little bit more on the long-haul market, because we feel that that’s where the lowest of hanging fruits for our model is. But I expect them to grow too.’

The challenge of change to strengthen Air India’s future

Air India is still in the process of improving its brand perception. That takes time, especially for an airline of such scale.

On the positive side, ‘for all its challenges, I think one of the common refrains from people that flew Air India was that they liked the food. And (that) the crew were hospitable and warm, if not especially consistent. So I think the underlying ingredients are there. And so it’s a matter of recruiting, training, polishing – and that’s what we’ve been doing.’

‘We had 5,000 new cabin crew join us in the last 18 months, (adding) youth, enthusiasm, warmth, hospitality. They’re now being trained to a level that is of international standard. We’ve now got people from world-class, tier-one carriers in the training facility. (They’re) designing the (training) programs, doing the performance management, and so on. So I think those elements are coming along and they’ll just increasingly get better as the crew get more experience.’

At the time of our chat, ‘61% of our cabin crew have less than 18 months experience at the moment,’ Wilson readily admits. ‘So, it’ll take some time. But we are on-track from a hard product perspective. It’s obviously a matter of new aircraft deliveries or refits. So that’s (over) the next couple of years.’

‘From a soft product perspective, all of the catering, all of the serviceware, Ferragamo kits, all of those things have now been rolled out. It’s now in service on the London route. It’s progressively rolling out to the rest of the routes by end of, I believe, March.’

‘All of these things are work in progress. I think, the fact that the A350 to London has an NPS of 70 attests to the fact that it’s not an aspiration, it’s actually a reality that we just have to make consistent across the fleet.’

(NPS refers to ‘net promoter score‘, a marketing metric of how likely those surveyed would be to recommend the product and service to others. An NPS score of 70 generally ranks as ‘excellent’.)

Growing the airline’s frequent flyer program

Air India’s Flying Returns program saw a significant revamp in early 2024. It’s since been combined with Vistara’s loyalty program and now operates under the name Maharaja Club. Those keen on becoming ‘royalty’ with Air India can notch up status by ascending through its recently renamed Silver, Gold and Platinum ranks.

Those who fly frequently in Indian skies might recognise ‘The Maharaja Club’ as being the previous moniker for Air India’s Platinum-equivalent tier. Now, it’s become the name of the program itself. Platinum is simply Platinum, for ease of understanding.

‘Certainly, (the loyalty program is) something we plan to grow,’ says Wilson. ‘It’s just a matter of prioritisation and bandwidth,’ given everything else that’s been on the cards between Air India, Vistara and Tata Group behind the scenes. For instance, ‘rebranding two airlines, merging four airlines, changing 85 systems, taking a new aircraft every six days, recruiting 9,000 people, exiting 3000 people…’ Clearly, there’s a lot happening!

Even so, I ask about greater opportunity to earn miles in Australia. ‘Fleshing out the loyalty program in different geographies clearly is something we want to do,’ Wilson acknowledges. I just get the sense, it’s not currently the highest priority.

Making business travel more rewarding

On the corporate side, would Air India look to create a loyalty program for businesses, akin to the likes of Qantas Business Rewards or Virgin Australia Business Flyer? ‘Singapore Airlines realised it with HighFlyer as well,’ the former Singapore Airlines VP is quick to remind. But ‘we haven’t really jumped into that yet. I think we’ve got lower hanging fruit to pluck first.’

Instead, Air India has been undoing some of its former policies that were actively making things difficult for corporate flyers. For instance, ‘Air India had done an exclusivity deal with Travelport for the Indian market (when) under government ownership. And as a consequence of that, Sabre wouldn’t carry Air India’s inventory and Amadeus wouldn’t promote Air India.’

That’s ‘in addition to a poor frequent flyer program under the old structure, which we’ve now changed.’ Combined, it meant that ‘Air India didn’t play in the corporate space because it wasn’t carried by GDSs, and it didn’t have a product that could stand up for a corporate traveller. Certainly, (it) had no corporate traveller program. So, we’re trying to fix all of these basics, which are more important to fix, before we get to the point of offering a corporate reward system.’

For now, Australian travellers may find other, personal Star Alliance loyalty programs a better fit. For instance, you can book Air India flights using Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles, or through many other Star Alliance programs including Air Canada Aeroplan.

Also read: Inside Air India’s $100 billion project to become a ‘premium global airline’

Imagery courtesy of Air India. Chris Chamberlin attended the CAPA Airline Leader Summit in Brisbane as a guest of CAPA Centre for Aviation.

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