Tata Sons chief N Chandrasekaran to head Air India

Natrajan Chandrasekaran, the chairman of Tata Sons, was named chairman of Air-India on Monday. However, the chief executive officer and managing director of Air India have yet to be appointed by Tata Sons.

The Tata Sons board of directors re-appointed Chandrasekaran as executive chairman for another five years in February. Tata Sons is the Tata group’s main holding company, with Tata Trusts, led by Ratan Tata, owning about 66 percent of its stock.  

Tata Group, a salt-to-software conglomerate, won the bid to buy debt-ridden state-run airline Air India for Rs 18,000 crore.  

This comes after Tata Group offered Mehmet Ilker Ayci, the former chairman of Turkish Airlines, the position of chief executive officer and managing director of Air India.

Because of his previous political ties, the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, which is tied to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has asked the government to oppose the appointment of the highly experienced Turkish aviation specialist.

When Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was mayor of Istanbul in 1994, Ayci served as an adviser to him. Erdogan is a close supporter of Pakistan, and he has spoken out against the weakening of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.  

Tata Group’s relationship with Chandra

Mr. Chandrasekaran is the Chairman of Tata Sons, the holding firm that owns and operates over 100 Tata operational enterprises. In October 2016, he joined the Tata Sons Board of Directors and was named Chairman in January 2017.  

He is also a director on the boards of several of the group’s operating companies, including Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Power, and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), where he was CEO from 2009 to 2017. 

His appointment as Chairman followed a 30-year career in business with TCS, which he began right out of university. He rose through the ranks of TCS to become CEO and Managing Director of the world’s largest IT solutions and consulting firm. 

Chandrasekaran was the Tata Group’s first professional non-Parsi executive.  

Air India’s board has been redesigned

A five-member team is currently in charge of the airline. As independent directors, Alice GeeVarghese Vaidyan, former CEO of General Insurance Corporation, and Sanjiv Mehta, CEO of FMCG behemoth Hindustan Unilever Limited, will be inducted.

It includes Nippun Aggarwal, a senior vice president of Tata Sons, and four functional directors of the company. 

The government has maintained a debt of Rs 15,300 crore in Air India and Air India Express Ltd (AIXL), while 100% of Air India, AIXL, and the national carrier’s 50% stake in Air India SATS Airport Services Private Limited (AISATS) have been transferred to Talace Pvt Ltd, a Tata Sons wholly-owned subsidiary.  

Separately, Tata Group has agreed to take out loans from a consortium of lenders led by the State Bank of India (SBI).  

The Resurrection Plan of Air India

Chandrasekaran visited the airline’s headquarters in Delhi on Monday to assess the carrier’s recovery plans. Chandrasekaran will listen to thorough presentations from Air India board members in order to develop a strategy.  

Chandra emphasized Tata’s ambition for Air India after the takeover in January, promising to make “Air India the world class airline it deserves to be” and “absolutely the best in class” in customer service, technology, fleet, and network.

He went on to say that it would provide “the highest possible hospitality both on and off the plane.”  

Chandra’s current visit to oversee Air India’s review plan follows the restoration of regular foreign flights, which had been suspended since 2020, on March 27. 

Published By: Manan Khurana

Edited By: Khushi Thakur