Air India has appointed Tewolde Gebremariam, the former chief executive of Ethiopian Airlines Group, as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, effective immediately following Campbell Wilson's exit. The Ethiopian national, who retired from his previous role in March 2022 for health reasons, inherits one of global aviation's most challenging assignments as the Tata Group-owned carrier grapples with record losses, ongoing investigation into a deadly crash, and mounting regulatory scrutiny.
Gebremariam replaces Wilson, a New Zealand-born Singapore Airlines veteran who took the helm in July 2022 but stepped down after the airline's operational difficulties mounted. Air India's board, led by Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran, conducted what it termed an intensive evaluation process, assessing both internal candidates and accomplished executives from around the world before selecting Gebremariam. The appointment signals a pivot toward proven airline transformation expertise after Wilson's strategy failed to arrest deteriorating financial performance. During his decade-plus tenure leading Ethiopian Airlines from 2011 to 2022, Gebremariam transformed the regional African carrier into the continent's largest and most profitable airline by quadrupling annual revenue to approximately $4.5 billion while expanding the fleet from 33 to 130 aircraft.
Gebremariam began his four-decade aviation career as a traffic officer at Ethiopian Airlines in 1985 and rose through increasingly senior positions, including leadership roles across the carrier's India operations, Saudi Arabia region, and North American territory before becoming Chief Operating Officer in 2006 and ultimately Chief Executive in 2011. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Addis Ababa University and a Master of Business Administration from the Open University in the United Kingdom. His strengths are widely recognised as encompassing operational excellence, strategic hub development, maintenance and repair infrastructure development, cultural transformation, and workforce upskilling. He has also worked as a Senior Strategic Advisor at Delta Air Lines and operates his own consultancy firm, TGM Advisory Services.
Air India faces an unprecedented crisis. The airline posted a record loss of approximately $2.8 billion for the financial year ending March 2026, its worst performance since Tata Group's acquisition in January 2022. The carrier has accumulated losses exceeding 58,000 crore rupees across four financial years under Tata ownership despite massive investments in fleet modernization and operational restructuring. The airline cancelled numerous international flights due to Pakistan airspace closure and the Middle East conflict, forcing the board to cut capacity by over 20 percent. Compounding these woes is the June 12, 2025 crash of Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which killed 260 people shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad bound for London, making it the deadliest aviation accident of the 2020s and the first fatal crash of a 787 since its 2011 introduction. Investigators are still examining the cause, examining whether pilot error or technical failures in fuel switch systems were responsible.
Gebremariam's appointment suggests that Tata and its 25.1 percent co-investor Singapore Airlines have concluded that Wilson's playbook, despite ambitious modernisation initiatives and a record aircraft order of 470 aircraft, could not overcome structural challenges inherited from Air India's decade-long government ownership. The incoming CEO must reverse deepening losses while addressing safety culture concerns raised by regulators following the Dreamliner crash, which cited lapses ranging from missing emergency equipment checks to maintenance record forgery and crew fatigue management failures. Gebremariam's demonstrated ability to build profitable global hub operations and implement systematic safety and maintenance standards positions him as a direct contrast to Wilson's tenure. However, whether experience transforming a regional African carrier into a continental force translates to stabilizing a loss-plagued full-service carrier with 26 Boeing 787s grounded for inspection and India's volatile geopolitical aviation environment remains uncertain. The scope of Air India's financial hemorrhaging and legacy infrastructure challenges may prove far more intractable than the relative growth trajectory Gebremariam engineered in the less competitive African market.
