Why Air India is betting on Tewolde Gebremariam for a tough reset

NEW DELHI: Seven years before he was named to lead Air India, Tewolde Gebremariam stood at the scene of an Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157 people and helped trigger the worldwide grounding of Boeing 737 MAX jets. That disaster and the COVID-19 pandemic that followed became two of the gravest crises he faced. It may help explain why the Tata Group turned to him to run Air India. The job that Tewolde faces at the Indian airline is formidable: he must restore confidence in its safety after a crash last year killed 260 people, stem losses, modernize an ageing fleet and navigate Pakistan's ban on Indian carriers using its airspace. The surprise appointment of outsider Tewolde signals a shift in Tata Group's turnaround of the airline, from merging with Indian carrier Vistara and placing large aircraft orders, to the harder task of running it safely, reliably and profitably. Tata owns about 75% of Air India, with Singapore Airlines owning the rest. Reuters reported in May that the search had narrowed to two candidates - Air India commercial chief Nipun Aggarwal and Vinod Kannan, former CEO of Vistara, now at Singapore Airlines - although no decision had been made. Air India and Ethiopian Airlines did not respond to emails seeking comment, and Tewolde did not respond to a message sent on LinkedIn. An internal Air India document reviewed by Reuters describes Tewolde as a "change leader" with special skills in crisis management, who joined Ethiopian in 1985 in the cargo unit and rose to run Africa's largest airline group. He was named African CEO of the Year in 2012. In 11 years as CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, the Air India document says, he turned it into Africa's leading carrier, spending $1 billion to build businesses around its Addis Ababa hub, including the continent's largest cargo terminal, an aviation university, maintenance hangars, a catering centre and a 1,000-room hotel. Tewolde will be replacing Campbell Wilson, who resigned in April and whose notice period ends on September 30. Air India has not said when Tewolde will formally take charge. Crashes, covid and competition The gravest crisis Tewolde handled came on March 10, 2019, when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 went down shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa. Tewolde grounded the carrier's remaining 737 MAX jets the same day, ahead of orders by regulators in China and the United States. About a year later, the COVID pandemic wiped out most of Ethiopian's passenger business. Without a state bailout, Tewolde turned to cargo, leaning on freighters and a cargo terminal built years earlier and converting passenger jets to carry freight. The internal document lists managing in a "hyper competitive environment" as one of Tewolde's skills - a test that awaits him in India, where IndiGo carries the bulk of domestic traffic and foreign carriers compete hard for lucrative international routes. Also, the June 2025 crash of an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner has intensified regulatory scrutiny of the carrier, which has since faced warnings and a penalty over separate safety and compliance lapses. Tewolde is no stranger to India, having run Ethiopian's India and Southeast Asia business from Mumbai in the mid-1990s. He left the airline in March 2022 due to health issues. Since then he has advised U.S. carrier Delta Air Lines on international business and the World Bank's International Finance Corporation on aviation and logistics investment in emerging markets, the internal document says. A new test At Air India, Tewolde inherits a larger, more complex company. The airline and its budget arm lost over $2 billion last financial year. The carrier has cut international flights as Pakistan's airspace ban and the Iran war have lengthened routes and raised fuel costs. The airline is also awaiting a final report into last year's crash. Last month, Air India Chairman N. Chandrasekaran said the airline's turnaround could take up to a decade. Air India's other safety lapses include one of its Airbus jets completing eight passenger flights without a mandatory airworthiness permit. The airline's own investigation found "systemic failures" and an urgent need to tighten compliance, Reuters reported in December. Tewolde has said Ethiopian thrived as a state-owned airline because successive governments let professionals run it. "The owners should not be managers," he said in a 2023 interview on the "Our Future Skies" podcast.