Air India Group on Friday announced a number of management changes caused by the merger of Air India and Vistara scheduled for November 12.
Vinod Kannan, CEO of Vistara, who has also been holding the role of chief integration officer for the full-service airlines’ merger, will continue in the latter role post-merger.
Kannan, who worked for over 20 years at Singapore Airlines, will be a member of the management committee and report directly to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson.
Deepak Rajawat, chief commercial officer of Vistara, will take up the CFO role at the newly-enlarged Air India Express, reporting to CEO Aloke Singh. He will also support group CFO Sanjay Sharma in strategic initiatives and projects.
Vikas Agarwal, the current CFO of Air India Express, will move to a new role in Air India.
Hamish Maxwell, senior vice-president-flight operations of Vistara, has assumed an advisory role to Aloke Singh, while Pushpinder Singh, chief operations officer of Air India Express, returns to flying. A successor for Singh will be announced in due course.
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 firms.
Vistara CFO Niyant Maru, who had continued beyond his superannuation date to see through completion of the merger, will retire at the end of his current term.
All other Air India Group CXO roles and reporting line roles remain unchanged, a statement from the group said on Friday.
“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,” Wilson said.
“As we now approach the end of that process, we are delighted to formalise a group leadership comprising colleagues from all four antecedent airlines to drive the next phase of our journey,” Wilson added.
In August this year, the government approved the investment of $360 million by Singapore Airlines, paving the way for the merger of Vistara and Air India. The merger, which has been in the works for more than a year, will see the Singaporean carrier which had 49% stake in the company that ran Vistara, hold a 25.1% stake in the merged entity.