By Doyinsola Oladipo
NEW YORK, May 21 (Reuters) - Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said on Thursday that his successor will have his or her "hands full," as the carrier grapples with a ban on the usage of neighbor Pakistan's airspace, fallout from the Iran war and a strong U.S. dollar.
Wilson said he would leave in a couple of months' time.
“The next four years is going to be just as challenging as the past, albeit in a different way," Wilson told a lunch event at Wings Club in New York. "And so the person that takes over will have their hands full, but I want to make sure the right person is in place to carry that forward.”
Reuters has reported that Singapore Airlines executive Vinod Kannan and Air India's commercial head Nipun Aggarwal are the two frontrunners to become the new CEO of Air India.
Air India, which has reported heavy losses, has also faced a series of safety lapses.
Wilson said it was always clear that he would hold a four-year term at Air India, but would take steps to help his successor.
"I'm going to be flexible for as long as it takes for them to find someone and make sure that we do a good transition," Wilson said.
With a fast-growing market, Air India has ambitions to become an aviation powerhouse.
But the carrier, which had a crash involving one of its 787 Dreamliner jets in June 2025, has also been forced to cancel thousands of flights due to the Iran war and the Pakistan airspace ban. Some of its lucrative international routes to North America have been cancelled or scaled back, while some existing flights take hours longer, creating added costs due to high fuel prices.
"We now can't fly over many parts of the Gulf, so we have to take an even longer routing. An eight-and-a-half-hour flight from Delhi to London now takes 12 (hours)," he added.
A new CEO would need to focus on everything from navigating global business challenges in aviation, such as airspace closures and uncertain fuel prices, along with specific tasks like growing the company and building relationships with staff.
“The platform has been laid, but obviously when you bring aircraft in, you're going to be operating in a much greater scale quite soon,” he told reporters after the event.
(Reporting By Doyinsola Oladipo in New York. Additional reporting by Abhijith Ganapavaram in New Delhi. Writing by Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Mark Porter)
