Tewolde Gebremariam, who is set to take over as Air India's CEO and MD next month, held meetings with senior airline executives this week during his first visit to India after being appointed. As reported by Business Standard, Gebremariam visited the national capital and Mumbai and held meetings with senior executives of the airline and Tata Group. The aviation industry veteran, who comes with nearly four decades of experience at Ethiopian Airlines Group, including as its CEO for over 11 years, will succeed Campbell Wilson as the airline pursues ambitious expansion plans amid multiple external headwinds.
At IndiGo, which controls more than 66% of the domestic market and recently turned 20 years old, the airline has experienced mixed results with both expat and Indian leadership. As reported by Business Standard, the longest and most successful tenure was between 2008 and 2018 under Aditya Ghosh, an Indian CEO. Other notable expat leaders at IndiGo include Bruce Ashby and Gregory Taylor, while the airline has also had challenges with cultural mismatches and bureaucratic systems when dealing with international executives. The current reliance on expat CEOs can be traced back to India's aviation history, which only opened for private commercial operations in 1994.
Gebremariam faces significant operational challenges at Air India, including safety issues following the prolonged probe into the crash of Air India Boeing 787 flight AI171 from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick in June 2025, which claimed 260 lives. The airline has also reported issues with its Boeing 787 fleet, particularly the 787-8, with a pilot flagging a defect in the fuel control switch earlier in 2026. A global aviation consultant noted that Air India made a mistake by not building its own MRO capability earlier, stating that without reliable aircraft, you can't run a cohesive schedule. The airline is building a major MRO facility at Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport, due to be operational in 2026.
The Tata group carriers, Air India and Air India Express, have accumulated losses of nearly ₹490 billion between FY2022-23 and FY2025-26, with the latest year alone seeing a combined net loss of ₹222.38 billion, the largest since privatisation. Chairman N Chandrasekaran noted in the holding company Tata Sons' annual report that Air India's transformation should be seen as a 'five- to ten-year journey'. The airline is participating in the government's hub-and-spoke model, connecting Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities to major international airports, with Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad as the four identified international hubs, linked to 40 spoke airports. Air India operates flights from Varanasi and Amritsar to tap tourist and diaspora traffic through its 'Easy Connect' services.
