India Needs Better Air Navigation Management

As India eyes a more prominent role in global aviation, Air India is positioning itself at the center of that ambition.

- Neha LM Tripathi

NEW DELHI: From a modernized fleet and increased international connectivity to a sharp focus on international transit traffic—the airline is rebuilding itself as a competitive global player. The airline's CEO Campbell Wilson shares his insights in an interview. Edited excerpts:

With the Pakistan airspace closure resulting in losses for you, how are you dealing with the situation?

Yes, we are discussing (the issue) with the government; whether they help (us financially) or not is their prerogative. One school of thought is that you say, well, we don't know how long this is going to last, so let's just make a call for the rest of the year and effect some changes. But then it's very hard to wind that back if the situation improves. So, you then inconvenience customers with different routings. You've planned your crew a certain way. The other approach is to take it more on a rolling basis and say every few weeks we'll assess the situation and take a call. And so, for the moment, we're doing the latter. And we'll plan through to the end of August, and then in a couple of weeks' time we'll look and see whether that should continue.

How do you see Air India's transformation contributing to India's goal of becoming a global aviation hub?