It was on January 27, 2022, when the erstwhile government-run national carrier Air India formally came into the hands of the Tata Group, losing its public persona forever. It was a moment of great relief for the Indian government, which had been unsuccessfully trying to bring the airline into competition, and a moment of pride and excitement for the Tata Group, which regained ownership of the brand and product created and shaped by its patriarch JRD Tata.
The transition got off to a rocky start, with the group taking time to put together a new management team. The airline’s current CEO Campbell Wilson only took the reins in July 2022 and brought with him new head of security Henry Donohoe; The pair and some other senior level executives from various Tata companies started trying to bring about change in the company. The management placed one of the largest aircraft orders in India’s aviation history, spent a lot of money on rebranding, and merged Vistara into Air India, and Air Asia India into its regional low fare airline Air India Express.
no dream race
To say that things did not go exactly as the group had expected would be an understatement. During 2023 and 2024, the airline faced criticism from most passengers, especially those who experienced its long-haul product. It also received several strong whacks on the knuckles from the safety regulator. And he had to face many shameful incidents.
In late 2022, a scandal involving a passenger allegedly urinating on another passenger on one of the airline’s international flights troubled the country, although attracted attention. In 2023, two incidents – one on a New York flight and the other on a San Francisco flight that had to make an emergency landing in Russia – highlighted the airline’s engineering and technical flaws. In September 2023, a father and daughter duo traveling in economy class reported a complete breakdown of the infrastructure on board: broken seats, non-functional entertainment screens, unhygienic and “smelly” toilets, and rude staff. More recently, in January, a Delhi consumer court held the airline liable for “deficiency in service” and ordered compensation. ₹1.5 lakh.
2024 proved to be no different and even with occasional reports of improvements in service on some flights, there were also a few more tales of glitches, such as when a flier found a metal blade in his food. 2025 started with an embarrassing incident when a Delhi-bound flight had to return to Chicago airport after most of the 12 toilets on the plane were found clogged and unusable. In April that year, passengers traveling from the capital to Bengaluru on an Air India flight were stranded on the tarmac for 10 hours due to unavailability of the crew.
Chaos continues after the accident
The airline’s safety record also remained largely lacking. According to disclosures made by the aviation ministry in the Rajya Sabha in July, between January and July 2025, the airline received nine notices from the regulator for five different violations.
The revelation came after a thorough investigation of the airline’s safety record following the Ahmedabad plane crash of AI 171, which killed 260 people, including 18 people on the ground.
Nine included show cause notices to the training director in relation to violations committed by 19 crew members, flagging lapses found in training norms and protocols; Notice to Cabin Safety Training Manager for breach of regulatory requirements in case of flight operations – crew operated flights with a lapsed qualification card on multiple occasions; And, immediately after the accident, a letter was sent to the Director of Cabin Safety regarding four instances of non-compliance with cabin crew requirements for ultra long-haul range flights, although the violations had occurred in the year before the accident.
Then, in late July, the annual audit of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said that in the previous year’s inspection there had been a total of 19 Level One findings with Tata Group airlines being the only ones with Level One findings among the audited Indian carriers. DGCA categorizes audit findings into two levels: Level 1 involves direct safety threats, including improper aircraft maintenance, documentation of expired parts, or serious crew training deficiencies. Level 2 typically refers to procedural violations or administrative oversights.
In late December 2025, the DGCA issued notices to Air India pilots and the airline over operation and dispatch of aircraft with concerns over repeated malfunctions, Minimum Equipment List (MEL) non-compliance and crew decision-making. The flights involved were on the Delhi-Tokyo sector and the regulator reportedly found a system malfunction and the smell of smoke near the cabin door, yet the aircraft was accepted for flight.
Sure, some of the show cause notices are technical, but together, the pattern of notices highlights serious deficiencies in crew management and scheduling and failure to follow guidelines for rest rules, operational planning, crew requirements, and lapses in training procedures. Airline officials said the weakest link in the Air India chain is the engineering and poor maintenance of the aircraft – both inside the cabin and under the hood. With technical and maintenance glitches often making headlines, many inside and outside are now asking why the Tata Group did not insist and offer a good price to the government for AIESL, the company’s engineering arm, which remains under government control and ownership.
red ink everywhere
What’s worse, as March, the end of the financial year, approaches, Air India is likely to hit a new low, its biggest loss since the airline changed hands. News reports say the group’s losses are likely to be in the range ₹Air India’s losses widen to Rs 15,000 crore with Air India Express (AEX) reducing its losses in the financial year. Airline executives said AIX is likely to incur losses of approx. ₹3,500 crore while the rest is likely to be on account of Air India’s losses.
In May 2025, things were looking a little better and the airline was slowly but surely moving towards a financial turnaround. Air India managed to reduce its pre-tax losses ₹3,890 for the financial year ending March 2025, no mean feat for an airline that had seen significant losses for the past several years. This was made possible by a combination of increased aircraft utilisation, improved load factors and good yields in many international regions where there was little or no competition.
However, the group’s losses remained high. ₹Rs 10,000-crore Air India Express – which was making modest profits before the merger – reported substantial losses after its merger with Air Asia India. .
Unfortunately for the Tata Group, a combination of events that began last April due to rising tensions between India and Pakistan led to the closure of Pakistan’s airspace and forced the airline to divert and reroute planes bound for North America, leading to increased costs. This was followed by the fatal AI171 accident in June 2025, which in itself was a major financial loss (hull damage and many accident-related costs); The accident also frightened fliers, leading to a sharp drop in the carrier’s traffic and revenue. Even within the airline, morale and confidence reached a new low, severely impacting crew productivity after the disaster.
But if revenues declined, costs also failed to follow suit. The team in charge appears to be focusing most of their attention on cosmetic changes: gimmicky videos, new uniforms and looks, better food, etc., with very little focus on actual operations: rostering of pilots, improving ground operations, and improving training standards and procedures. Certainly, some of the costs associated with the accident and the closure of the airfield were beyond the airline’s control.
As heads turn, where do we go from here
Even with the news of CEO Campbell Wilson’s impending departure before his tenure officially ended – predicted by many even before the crash, many questions remain unanswered.
The most pressing matter concerns security chief Henry Donohoe, who was brought in by Campbell ostensibly to plug the gaps he found at the airline. Soon after Campbell took charge, he told this author in an interview in June 2023 that he had worked in different cultures and had the requisite experience. He further added, “My approach so far has been to recruit Indians for most of the roles. The only exception so far on a permanent staff basis is the appointment of the Head of Safety and Security, where I felt there was a need to bring in international best practices from a global airline.”
But the aftermath of the accident has highlighted the competence and capability of the safety chief brought in by Campbell, who was also director of safety at Emirates in August 2016, when the airline first suffered losses. Although the cause of the Emirates crash was identified as pilot error, many argue that this – along with the AI171 crash – makes Donohoe the only head of safety with two hull damage and crashes under his watch globally.
“Since Campbell has repeatedly absolved Air India of any blame in the AI171 crash, there is no reason why the safety chief should step down. Yet if he remains, the Air India safety chief will have the dubious distinction of seeing two wide-body accidents under his watch during his career. This is perhaps a first”, said an employee on condition of anonymity. An email sent to the airline regarding the security chief remained unanswered till the time of going to press.
With many of the same nagging questions at stake, industry analysts say that four years after the ownership change, Air India again appears to be at a crossroads, and it will need to do some heavy lifting – an unenviable task for the incoming CEO and team members.
(Anjuli Bhargava writes about governance, infrastructure and social sector. Views expressed are personal.)
