Air India Has Bulked Up. Incoming CEO Tells Staff to Focus on Safety, Reliability — and Profit

Photo Credit: A file image of an Air India Boeing 787-8. Air India Air India has spent the past four years getting bigger. Its incoming CEO Tewolde Gebremariam now wants to make sure it gets better, and more profitable. Gebremariam, the former Ethiopian Airlines chief, addressed Air India employees at his first company-wide townhall on Monday. He is yet to formally assume the CEO and managing director role and is awaiting the necessary regulatory approvals. Foreign nationals leading Indian airlines require that approval, as Campbell Wilson did when he was appointed in 2022. Air India has spent the past four years rebuilding under the Tata Group ownership, placing a major aircraft order, modernizing its fleet and product, upgrading technology, completing the Vistara merger, and integrating its other airlines. That has left Gebremariam with a very different airline from the one Wilson inherited. Th