Air India’s next test: Safety, trust and sustainable growth

Air India is entering another important chapter in its long and turbulent history. With Tewolde Gebremariam appointed as its new CEO and Managing Director, and Campbell Wilson remaining through September to support the transition, the airline has reached a point where the nature of the challenge itself is changing.

The Tata Group has already done what was once considered almost impossible. It brought Air India back into private ownership, began rebuilding its ageing fleet and systems, merged it with Vistara and committed billions of dollars to creating a much larger airline. Yet the uncomfortable truth is that Air India remains a work in progress.

The foundations have been rebuilt, but the airline has not yet fully restored the confidence of passengers, employees or investors. Tewolde's real challenge, therefore, is not to begin another transformation. It is to make the transformation already under way deliver consistently.

The Baggage Of Seven Decades

The Tatas did not acquire an ordinary troubled airline when they regained Air India in 2022. They inherited seven decades of history, much of it shaped by government ownership, changing priorities, financial losses, ageing aircraft and a gradual erosion of the service culture that had once made Air India one of the world's respected airlines.

This was particularly painful because Air India had begun with an extraordinary pedigree. Under J. R. D. Tata, the airline represented the best of Indian hospitality and professionalism. The Maharaja became a global symbol of Indian aviation. Over the years, however, the brand's reputation and the passenger experience moved increasingly in opposite directions.

The Tatas therefore acquired not only an airline, but also the difficult task of separating the emotional legacy of Air India from the organisational habits and operating weaknesses that had accumulated around it.

The Rebuilding Has Been Enormous

It would be wrong to suggest that little has changed. Campbell Wilson's tenure involved an enormous amount of heavy lifting. Air India's fleet renewal was set in motion, technology and operational systems were upgraded, training capabilities were strengthened and the merger with Vistara created a much larger full-service airline.

The wider Air India Group was also consolidated from four airlines into two: Air India and Air India Express. With orders placed for hundreds of aircraft, the Group now has an aviation platform of a scale that the old Air India could never have contemplated.

These are substantial achievements and provide the foundations for a genuine global airline. But an aircraft order, a new technology system or a merger does not by itself create a great airline.

Passengers may never see the organisational work happening behind the scenes. What they want to know is whether the aircraft will depart and arrive on time, whether their baggage will arrive with them, whether the cabin will be clean, whether the crew will deliver the promised service and whether the airline can be relied upon when something goes wrong.

Safety And Trust Must Come First

The fatal crash of flight AI171 in June 2025 and the scrutiny that followed changed the context in which Air India's transformation must now be judged. The investigation remains ongoing, and conclusions about the cause must be left to the authorities. But for the airline, the larger responsibility is already clear: safety cannot be treated as one priority among many. It has to sit above everything else.

That makes trust the most important currency for the new Air India. Years of decline do not disappear because ownership has changed, and confidence cannot be restored through a new livery or an advertising campaign.

Trust is accumulated slowly through hundreds of operational decisions and passenger experiences, and it can be lost very quickly. It is therefore significant that Air India's leadership has placed safety, customer trust, operational reliability and cost discipline at the centre of the next phase.

These may sound like basic airline requirements, but they are precisely the fundamentals on which Air India's reputation must now be rebuilt. The Tata Group does not need merely to tell people that Air India has changed. Passengers and employees need to experience that change consistently.

Why The New CEO Matters

Tewolde's appointment is consequently more than a change of management. His experience at Ethiopian Airlines gives him a record of building an airline for international scale, developing networks, expanding fleets and creating capabilities in areas such as training and maintenance.

That experience is relevant to an Air India that wants to move beyond being India's flag carrier and become a serious global airline. He also takes charge at a point when execution, safety culture, service consistency and financial discipline matter more than fresh promises.

Yet he is inheriting a challenge different from the one he faced in Africa. Ethiopian Airlines did not carry the same burden of nostalgia, national expectation and accumulated disappointment that Air India carries in India.

Tewolde must lead a brand that represents pride to one generation, disappointment to another and little more than an airline choice to many younger travellers. He has to give all three a reason to believe in it again.

The Financial Reality

There is also no escaping the economics. Transforming Air India was never going to be cheap, and its owners have invested heavily in aircraft, refurbishment, technology, training, infrastructure and integration.

The Air India Group, including Air India Express, reported losses of more than USD 2 billion for the financial year ended March 2026. Air India has also sought a further USD 1.5 billion in equity from Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, with discussions over the proposed funding still under way.

The losses can partly be understood in the context of rebuilding a business of this scale, integration costs, geopolitical disruption, airspace restrictions and high operating expenses. But those explanations cannot become a permanent business model.

At some point, the transformation has to produce an airline that can stand on its own economics. Tewolde's task is therefore not merely to grow Air India, but to make that growth financially sustainable.

The large aircraft order will create enormous capacity over time. The challenge will be to induct those aircraft sensibly, deploy them on the right routes, fill them at viable yields, operate them efficiently and generate an adequate return on the capital being committed.

A Brand Cannot Live On Nostalgia

Air India possesses something that most airlines would love to have: history. The Maharaja, the Tata connection, J. R. D. Tata and the memory of an airline that once represented Indian excellence provide enormous emotional capital.

But nostalgia alone cannot build a modern global airline. Today's Indian traveller is not comparing Air India only with the Air India of the 1960s. The comparison is with the best airlines in the world and with competitors that deliver greater consistency at home.

The renewed brand therefore has to retain the warmth and character that made Air India distinctive while matching global standards of safety, reliability, technology, consistency and service.

The challenge is to preserve the soul of the Maharaja without allowing the romance of the past to obscure the operational demands of the present.

The Second Act

Tewolde's arrival comes at an important moment. The first phase of the Tata story was about ownership, consolidation and reconstruction. The next phase has to be about performance, safety and credibility.

Air India no longer needs to prove that the Tata Group is serious about aviation. The scale of its investment has already demonstrated that commitment. What it must now prove is that the investment can produce an airline that passengers trust, employees are proud to work for and shareholders can believe will eventually generate sustainable returns.

The Maharaja has been given another chance. Bringing Air India home was only the beginning. The harder task is to make it safe, reliable, consistent and financially resilient.

That is the challenge before Tewolde Gebremariam and the real test of whether the Tata Group can restore not only Air India's economics, but also its place in the imagination of India.