Air India to look ‘within’ for senior level appointments

New Delhi: The government is treading very cautiously on the issue of senior level appointments at Air India.
The last time seasoned outside professionals had been inducted to ensure the airline stages a turnaround, the move had backfired.
Catfights had broken out in board meetings between independent directors, functional directors and government nominees over these appointments and ultimately, three of the four such officials were made to resign.
Since then, several top level positions across Air India have been vacant. So, to save itself the blushes this time, the government has decided not to look for outside people to man these key posts.
Air India needs a director personnel and a director commercial. Also, positions are vacant for chief operating officers of low-cost subsidiary Air India Express as well as for Alliance Air. The post of director finance is also expected to fall vacant soon.
Airline officials said that the thinking this time around is to hire “from within”. Now whether this means eligible internal airline candidates would be promoted or qualified bureaucrats will be hired from other PSUs - this remains to be seen. The issue of salary for these posts is also under review, since there was all-round grumbling about “exorbitant” salaries offered to the professionals who had been brought in earlier. Pawan Arora had been appointed COO of AI Express, Stefan Sukumar as chief of training and Gustav Baldauf as COO of Air India.
31/05/11 Sindhu Bhattacharya/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Air India Jun 2011