Air India crash: How fast can new management get airline back on track?

Air India’s ambitious transformation has captured global attention over the past two years.

Backed by the Tata Group, the airline has pursued a bold agenda to reinvent itself as a world-class carrier - investing heavily in fleet renewal, service upgrades, operational integration, and digital modernization.

But last week’s devastating crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner departing from Ahmedabad has become the most severe test yet of this strategy’s resilience.

The loss of more than 240 lives, including a majority of the passengers and crew onboard, is not only a humanitarian tragedy - it’s a defining moment for an airline seeking to re-establish its global credibility.

It forces Air India’s leadership to demonstrate whether this transformation is more than just cosmetic and whether the underlying systems, culture, and governance are strong enough to endure crisis.

Under the ‘Vihaan.AI’ transformation blueprint, Air India has committed to becoming an agile, and competitive global airline within five years. That has meant merging four airline brands, overhauling its customer experience, hiring new talent, and placing the largest commercial aircraft order in aviation history.

Nearly half of its wide-body fleet has already been retrofitted with new interiors, and the airline has expanded into new long-haul markets with a growing codeshare and alliance network.

This momentum now faces a stark challenge. The crash involved one of Air India’s Dreamliners, an aircraft that had undergone standard maintenance and was assigned to a high-yield international route.

The initial trajectory and eyewitness reports suggest a failure to achieve lift, raising questions around flight configuration, systems readiness, and human factors. Regardless of the final cause, the incident punctures the narrative of smooth transformation and reintroduces public doubts about safety oversight, procedural discipline, and technical training.

The most immediate consequence is on operational credibility. In a deregulated, competitive global aviation market, brand perception can change overnight. Customers who were beginning to return to Air India - impressed by improved service and modernized cabins - will now seek reassurance.

International regulators and corporate clients will scrutinize safety protocols, cockpit decision-making frameworks, and maintenance governance.

This is where the true test lies. In transformation programmes, organisations often focus disproportionately on customer-facing improvements - logos, uniforms, in-flight menus - while underinvesting in operational culture and control systems.

For Air India, the tragedy calls for urgent, visible reinforcement of safety culture, recurrent pilot training, cross-checking of maintenance routines, and clear accountability at every level of the organisation.

Crises do not destroy brands; mishandled responses do. Air India must now lead with radical transparency. Frequent public briefings, independent oversight, and a clear timeline for action will be essential in reassuring both domestic and international audiences.

This must be accompanied by a proactive audit of every Dreamliner in the fleet, combined with internal simulations, system tests, and performance reviews.

Importantly, the airline should view this not just as a recovery phase, but as a moment of acceleration. Operational safety, engineering standards, and crew performance must move to the core of the transformation agenda, supported by board-level governance and external verification.

The Tata Group’s stewardship of Air India has brought discipline, capital, and strategic vision. But now leadership must demonstrate that this is a transformation with depth - one that encompasses not just financial turnaround or product refresh, but an end-to-end cultural shift.

That means governance structures capable of identifying weak signals, responding to risk early, and embedding safety as a non-negotiable value.

This is also a test of resilience for the newly integrated leadership team. Air India’s management must navigate emotional complexity, public scrutiny, and operational continuity simultaneously - while continuing to unify multiple legacy cultures under a single, high-performance ethos.

For all its tragedy, this moment does not have to mark a derailment. Some of the world’s best airlines have faced major incidents in the past and emerged stronger - through introspection, system reform, and cultural reset. Air India has the strategic foundation, financial backing, and organisational intent to do the same.

What will define the next phase is not whether the airline recovers, but how it does so: with humility, accountability, and rigorous operational integrity. If it succeeds, this crisis may ultimately serve as a painful - but pivotal - chapter in the airline’s transformation story.