Air India CEO-designate Campbell Wilson has got security clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), thus paving the way for him to take charge of the airline, the PTI reported on Tuesday. A senior MHA official on Tuesday confiremd the report saying that the home ministry has given the security clearance to Wilson.
Tata Sons on May 12 announced the appointement of Wilson as the chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) of Air India.
On January 27, Tata Group officially took over the loss-making carrier. Air India was launched by the Tata Group in 1932 and the carrier was nationalised in 1953.
According to the report, specific details could not be immediately ascertained. There was no immediate response to a query sent by the PTI to an Air India spokesperson on the matter.
Security clearance of the home ministry is absolutely mandatory for appointment of key personnel at airlines, including foreigners, under civil aviation guidelines.
Weeks after acquiring Air India, Tata Sons, on February 14, named Turkish Airlines’ former Chairman Lyker Ayci as Air India’s MD and CEO. However, Ayci, who was to take over on April 1, declined to join the group amid concerns expressed over his appointment in certain quarters.
Wilson was the CEO of Singapore Airlines’ wholly-owned subsidiary Scoot Air. Singapore Airlines is a joint venture partner of Tata Group in full-service carrier Vistara. He then worked for other carriers in Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan before returning to Singapore in 2011, as the founding CEO of Scoot, which he led until 2016.
Wilson also served as the senior vice-president sales and marketing of Singapore Airlines, where he oversaw pricing, distribution, e-commerce, merchandising, brand and marketing, global sales, and the airline’s overseas offices, before returning for a second stint as the CEO of Scoot in April 2020.
Wilson, an aviation industry veteran with over 26 years of experience, started off as a management trainee with Singapore Airlines.
In a message to Air India employees on June 20, Wilson said the airline’s “best years are yet to come” and that the journey to make it a world-class airline will require efforts that are “big and small, easy and difficult”. Quoting airline sources, the PTI said Wilson has been visiting various offices of Air India and meeting staff in recent weeks.
In October last year, through a competitive bidding process, the government sold Air India to Talace Private Limited, a subsidiary of Tata Sons for Rs 18,000 crore.