Speaking at the Skift India Forum Campbell Wilson, CEO, Air India said that the fundamental constraint for Indian aviation in recent years was not deploying more capacity. Local carriers now have more than 1,000 aircraft on order. Air India and IndiGo are ordering widebody aircraft for international operations, as well as hundreds of smaller jets.
“I think that’s a good thing because it’s bringing the focus of Indian travel back onto Indian soil, and all of the spin-off economic benefits that brings tourism to airports, caterers, hoteliers and everything else,” Wilson said.
I think the power is in our hands,” said Air India CEO Campbell Wilson. “As time goes on, more and more of Indian aviation’s critical mass will be in India,” he added, while acknowledging that aircraft supply constraints will be determined by external partners.
Air India loyalty with the Maharaja Club
On the potential of the airline’s loyalty program, the Maharaja Club, Wilson confirmed that Air India Express will be integrated into the loyalty program “probably sometime this year.”
Wilson highlighted that the Maharaja Club already has 10 million members and it’s adding around 300,000 more every month, describing the upside as “huge.” He said that work was being done to make the program competitive and more customer friendly. “ Air India frequent flyer will be the second currency of India,” Wilson said.
Air India and AI
Wilson sharing his take on AI would said that it would be used for “augmentation,” not “substitution.” Issuing refunds and training pilots, cabin crew and ground staff would be areas where gen AI would be a fit, Wilson said. “The number of procedures a ground staff needs to remember, a cabin crew needs to remember, a pilot needs to remember, gen AI can aggregate, synthesize and present a very concise answer based on your tens of thousands of pages of SOP and policy,” Wilson concluded.
