Air India Rejig Ahead of Vistara Merger | Key Appointments

Mumbai, Nov 8 (PTI) Air India Group on Friday announced a rejig at the senior management level ahead of the merger of Vistara with Air India.

As part of this exercise, Vistara chief executive officer Vinod Kanan, who has also been holding the role of Chief Integration Officer for the merger of the two entities, will continue in the latter role post-merger.

Besides, he will be a member of the management committee and report directly to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson, a statement said.

Full-service carrier Vistara, which is a 51:49 per cent joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, is all set to merge with Air India on November 12.

It also said that Deepak Rajawat, Chief Commercial Officer of Vistara will take up the position of Chief Financial Officer at the low-cost arm Air India Express, reporting to its chief executive officer Aloke Singh and also support Air India Group CFO Sanjay Sharma in strategic initiatives and projects.

Consequently, Vikas Agarwal, the current CFO of Air India Express, will move to a new role in Air India, it said.

Senior vice president for flight operations at Vistara Hamish Maxwell has assumed an advisory role to Air India Express CEO Aloke Singh while Pushpinder Singh, Chief Operations Officer of Air India Express, returns to flying, as per the statement.

A successor for Singh will be announced in due course, it said.

Also, Deepa Chadha and Vinod Bhatt, senior vice president HR & Corporate Affairs and Chief Information Officer of Vistara respectively, will take on senior roles at other Tata group companies, the statement said adding that Vistara CFO Niyant Maru, who had continued beyond his superannuation date to see through the completion of the merger, will retire at the end of his current term.

All other Air India Group CXO roles and reporting lines roles remain unchanged, it said.

"Over the past two years, the four Tata airlines have worked hard to prepare for and execute one of the most complex mergers in aviation history, consolidating from four airlines to two in the context of dramatic growth and wholesale transformation. As we now approach the end of that process, have formalised a Group leadership comprising colleagues from all four antecedent airlines to drive the next phase of our journey," said Wilson.