Tatas to upgrade aircraft, make Air India financially fit, most advanced airline: N Chandrasekaran

Tata group will make Air India financially fit, upgrade aircraft, bring in new fleet and make it the most technologically advanced airline globally, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran said.

Virtually addressing employees of Air India across the globe, he said for the airline to be the best again there will be an organisational redesign, and it will ''require a huge transformation, probably the largest transformation and the change all of you would ever go through''.

The carrier will expand its ''outreach both domestically and internationally'' and it has the desire to connect India with every part of the globe, he added.

For Tata group, Chandrasekaran said the joining of Air India in its fold will help the conglomerate with the opportunity to represent the aspirations of 130 crore Indians, having already touched the lives of 60 crore Indians through its various brands, including Taj hotels, Tanishq, Tata Salt and Jaguar Land Rover.

He identified four core areas on which Air India will focus under the new management. These are providing best in class customer service, making it the most technologically advanced airline in the world, upgrading and modernising the fleet and hospitality, both in-flight and off-flight.

On fleet modernisation, Chandrasekaran said, ''we will upgrade our fleet. We will bring modernity to our fleet. We will bring a new fleet, we will expand our outreach.'' ''We will not only increase the number of aircraft that we will have, wide body and narrow body, (but) we will fly to many destinations,'' he said.

However, Chandrasekaran said, ''... in terms of fleet, we know we have work to do and when I talked to the management team, the commercial director and the engineering leadership, I know we have work to do. We will address it with most urgency, we will move with utmost urgency and speed in the coming months.'' Air India, Air India Express and AI-SATS together have around 15,000 employees. Air India has 12,000 employees and out of them, 8,000 are permanent ones.