Air India has been cruising along in their turnaround plan, but about one year after the arrival of Campbell Wilson as the CEO and Managing Director of Air India, the airline today announced a spate of management appointments and conducted a management reshuffle.

Air India appoints a new Chief Operations Officer.

Air India today announced the appointment of Capt Klaus Goersch as Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, who will oversee Flight Operations, Engineering, Ground Operations, Integrated Operations Control (IOCC) and Cabin Crew functions.

Capt Goersch worked for a long time at the US-based AirTran Airways in Operations and Customer Service (1996-2012) before heading to Air Canada as Chief Operating Officer. After about 5 years at Air Canada, he headed to British Airways as COO, and from there, he headed to the Saudi Arabian venture, NEOM Airlines, being established as a part of the futuristic city NEOM. Capt Goersch is a licensed B777/787 pilot and will be based out of Air India’s new headquarters in Gurugram.

Incumbent Chief of Operations Capt RS Sandhu, who had already extended his service with Air India beyond his superannuation date, will transition to an advisory role with a particular focus on the harmonisation of the four Tata airlines’ operating procedures, the Airbus A350 entry-into-service program and assisting the team establishing Air India’s new Training Academy.

Air India’s management reshuffle

Air India also announced other senior announcements to strengthen its management team.

• Capt Manish Uppal, who transitioned from AirAsia India a few months ago, has been appointed Senior Vice President of Flight Operations. He worked with AirAsia India for about eight years.
• Capt Henry Donohoe’s Corporate Safety, Security and Quality role will be expanded to include Emergency Response and be retitled Senior Vice President Safety, Security and Quality. He has worked in similar capacities at Air Lingus, Emirates and Norwegian.
• Mr Pankaj Handa has joined Air India to lead Ground Operations. Pankaj worked with Vistara and earlier with Kingfisher Airlines, Spicejet and Bangalore International Airport.
• Mr Choorah Singh joins as Divisional Vice President of the Integrated Operations Control. He was Deputy Director of Flight Operations at Ryanair and last worked with Irish regional airline Emerald Airlines as Director of Operations.
• Ms Ju Li Ng joins as Divisional Vice President Cabin Crew. She has a long stint with Indian and Singaporean carriers in developing Cabin Crew departments, having worked with Singapore Airlines, Jet Airways and Scoot before arriving at Air India. She has been working as an Advisor with Air India since April 2023.

Mr Handa, Mr Singh and Ms Ng will report to Capt Goersch, as will Capt Uppal and Mr Sisira Kanta Dash, Senior Vice President of Engineering.

The Inflight Product & Service Design functions headed by Mr Sandeep Verma will move to Mr Rajesh Dogra’s Customer Experience portfolio so that the latter has oversight of all customer interfaces. Capt Goersch, Mr Dogra and Capt Donohoe will report directly to Mr Wilson, as will existing Management Committee members Mr Nipun Aggarwal, Dr Satya Ramaswamy, Dr Suresh Dutt Tripathi and Mr Vinod Hejmadi, whose roles remain unchanged.

Bottomline

Air India has reshuffled and reorganised at the top, bringing in more talent from across the globe to lead the turnaround efforts of the airline. Capt Klaus Goersch has been handed a newly created position as Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer of the airline, and a whole team has been put under him.

What do you make of the reshuffle at Air India?

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