According to Tata Sons, the new CEO will join India’s largest Airline on 15 June.
Air India has appointed New Zealander Campbell Wilson as its new chief executive, the new owners Tata Sons said Thursday. Campbell Wilson is the head of Singapore Airlines’ low-cost subsidiary Scoot and will leave it for Air India on 15 June this year.
Tata bought Air India back from the Indian government after 69 years. In February, the company selected former Turkish Airlines boss Ilker Ayci to help turn around the loss-making airline. However, the Hindu nationalist organisation RSS opposed his appointment due to his connections with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Ilker Ayci said he later withdrew after “closely following the efforts to give another meaning to my appointment”, Turkish media quoted him as saying.
“Air India is at the cusp of an exciting journey to become one of the best airlines in the world,” the Tata statement quoted Wilson as saying.
An alumnus of University of Canterbury, Cambell Wilson has 26 years of aviation industry expertise. Mr Wilson, 50, has worked in Canada, Hong Kong and Japan for Singapore Airlines. “I am excited to join Air India and Tata colleagues in the mission of realising that ambition,” Mr Wilson said.
