An Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.
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LONG BEACH, Calif. — Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the carrier has embraced a “new normal” and a stepped-up safety focus following the crash of one of its planes in June, the deadliest aviation disaster in a decade.
All but one of the 242 people on board Air India Flight 171 on June 12 were killed when the Boeing Dreamliner, bound for London, crashed seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad in western India. Another 19 other people were killed on the ground.
A preliminary report released in July showed confusion in the cockpit when fuel cutoff switches were flipped off. The cockpit voice recording captured one pilot asking the other why he cut off the fuel and the other responding that he did not.
“The investigation is still ongoing, so I can’t comment too freely, but this has been an absolutely devastating event for the people involved, for families, for the company, for staff, and our focus over the last two months has been very much to support them in every way possible,” Wilson said at the Airline Passenger Experience Association’s conference and expo in Long Beach, Calif., on Tuesday.
“We continue to work with the regulator on the investigation and ensuring that whatever learnings come about from that investigation are put into play. For the moment, the preliminary report indicates nothing wrong with the aircraft, nothing wrong with the engines, nothing wrong with the airlines operation, but we’ve taken a significant safety pause to ensure all of our practices and procedures are fully embedded, and people are fully embracing a new normal of even extra focus on safety, and the focus continues to be on the people that were affected,” he said.
Air India had been in the middle of a massive modernization effort to better compete with other carriers and gain new customers in India’s fast-growing aviation market at the time of the crash. The refresh began after Tata Group privatized the 93-year-old carrier from the government three years ago.
That revamp is continuing with new cabins and better technology, said Wilson, and airline veteran who has previously served as CEO of Scoot, Singapore Airlines’ low-cost carrier. The carrier has placed orders for some 570 aircraft.
“Once Air India was privatized [we] could adopt more normal private sector practices, could make long-term decisions, had the capital to invest,” he said.
