The DGCA put a 30 lakh fine because Air India and Air India Express did not meet operational robustness in maintenance-related delays. There have been different kinds of fines. The point I'm making is that the information I'm giving you is very specific to this tail number, these engines, this pilot, and this incident. Any safety-related issues we take very seriously. There are two things in an airline: one is core safety, and there are other things you have to do. All I would say is that anything safety-related, the first thing after you took over, and there are many things you know, there are many makeup issues still there. Some IFE doesn't work, some seats don't function. Those are customer experience issues we are trying to sort out. They are different from safety issues. Anything safety-related, there is no way DGCA allows us to fly. With respect to this specific aircraft, what I have seen is what I have told you. But this is not to say anything more because we need to wait for the investigation. There are reports that on June 3rd and June 5th there were two show cause notices from the DGCA. Anything other than this particular aircraft we can talk about separately, but all I'm giving you data is only with respect to this incident, this aircraft, these engines, and these pilots. I want to ask you, the Turkish Technic maintaining Air India fleets has been raised as an issue that could probably be the cause in this case. How would you respond to that speculation?
In none of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft — we have 33 of them — none of them are maintained by Technic. Predominantly, most of them are maintained in India by AESL or SIA Engineering, the engineering company AESL, and SIA Engineering Company in Singapore. These are the guys who are maintaining these aircraft. They have nothing to do with any Turkish company for the 787 fleet. For the 787s, you have almost 33 787s in your fleet. The Dreamliners are suddenly the bad boys in the fleet. There have been whistleblowers in the past who have raised many questions about the safety norms followed by Dreamliners. At any stage, have your people raised safety concerns on the Dreamliners to you? See, practically speaking, there has never been a safety concern raised because Dreamliners have been operating globally for a very long time from 2008 or 2009, and Air India also procured them much before we bought Air India. So it was bought most of these when we bought Air India itself, we had 27 Dreamliners, and then we got additional six through Vistara. So a Dreamliner-specific complaint we have not received. While we have ordered a large number in the new orders — we have made a lot of orders on A350 — but we have also got options to buy 787. But there has never been a specific concern on the 787. But all these videos are also surfacing and they are doing a lot of viewing at this point in time.
But you must be aware of the fact that this is not only something that is surfacing now. The United States, the FAA is investigating some of these charges that have been made by former staff of Boeing. I want to ask you, the Federal Aviation Administration is looking at some of the exposes made by Sam Salehpour, and then there has been John Barnett who raised some concerns, now late John Barnett, and they've said that these concerns did exist in the Boeing aircraft.
See, these are things that are being dealt with by the investigation agencies in the US. But overall, 787s have been flying for a very long time, and in Air India it has been flying 787 for a long time.
So then let me ask you, you said, and I completely bring to you the viewer feedback, the customers out there who use your airline every day for commuting. They are at the end of their tether because there have been 13 Dreamliner flights that have been grounded between the 12th of June and today. Six days, 66 flights that have been cancelled. And it is spreading nervousness of the kind that has never been experienced before. Forget the flying experience, just the fact that flights are getting cancelled, information is not coming in, the fear factor has taken over at airports. There is literally a riot out there. How do you explain this?
Let me give you a full breakdown. First, I would like to say that there are more than 1100 flights that we fly every day. And in the last six days, there have been in general anywhere from 5 to 16 or 18 flights depending on the day that have been cancelled. First, you need that number. Second, what has happened in this period of six days? There are three things at work. The first thing is we have had to go through the DGCA checks. The moment the accident happened on the 12th, DGCA mandated additional checks to be done on all the 787s. So we have had to ground many 787s, and as a result we are short of aircraft and we had to cancel those flights. That is one cause. Out of the 33, about 24 have gone through the checks, and the remaining are going through, and it is taking time but it will get through. The second reason is also this whole airspace has got closed — Iran and the whole thing happening in the Middle East. So as a result, flights have to be diverted. When the flights are diverted, many other flights get cancelled. And these two have a knock-on effect because if the flight doesn't arrive in time, that flight cannot take off, and when that cannot take off we have to cancel it because there is no aircraft. The third is technical issues. And when we take off and land at any destination, you must know that we will be doing land checks, and every now and then it is common for line checks to find some spare part to be changed or something to be changed. Not in every flight, but it does happen. So because of that, there may be delays. If the spare part is there, immediately they change and immediately they take off. If the spare part is going to take time, and even if it comes and then they fix it, they may lose the slot for taking off or arriving landing because they will close the airports at 10:00 at some places. So these are the three things that have caused this. It is not all our technical errors. But I agree with you, Air India could have been very proactive in terms of everyday saying if they are cancelling, why they are cancelling. As opposed to a flight getting cancelled. In these six days, normally if they had communicated, it wouldn't create so much fear. But because of what happened on June 12th, anytime there is a delay or a diversion or cancellation, even if I was traveling I would be afraid. That is what has happened. So we are doing a better job of communication. We have not been good at it.
You are admitting that communication hasn't been very strong. Absolutely. And what are the corrective measures that you are undertaking?
So we have set up a communication team on top of what we have. In India, there is a regular comms team, and we have put a strategic communication team in place in the last three days. Today we have put out the first comprehensive media statement explaining all this: what happened on June 12th and subsequently why there have been so many cancellations. We give them the total number of flights we take, the cancellations, and why these cancellations have happened. We have taken an additional step because we are going to feel this kind of disruption for some more time. Our checks will be there, also the airspace closure will be there. So we have decided to reduce the number of aircraft which are flying so that we can have a lot of buffer aircraft. We are more than doubling the buffer aircraft both in the widebody and the narrowbody: 787s, 320s, and the 777s. We are creating more buffer. That statement would have been issued by now.
My question to you is also about the fact that Boeing has had a series of bad press, but several questions that have been following them in recent times. After the crash, there has been a meeting between you and the Boeing head visiting India. I want to understand from you what was this meeting all about? Safety aspects of Boeing, are they a concern? And what is it that has been red flagged to Boeing in terms of the hardware, the aircraft themselves?
So I did connect with both Boeing and GE at the highest levels. To be frank, their top team from both the companies traveled and met with us. What I asked both of them, in parallel to the DGCA checks that we have gone through, I asked them to check and tell us if any issues are there in any of the aircraft or engines.
What were your conversations with Stephanie Pope? Because many people are today talking about the spate of technical snags that have hit Air India in the recent week. Are these technical snags because of design issues or are they regular stuff that often crop up?
See, as I said, the numbers that you have said comprise multiple groupings. Some are very deliberate grounding of planes because we had to go through the DGCA checks. Then a certain number had to be cancelled primarily because of this airspace closure and diversions and disruptions due to that and the knock-on effect. Then there is a third category. Since we have not explained all of this, every cancellation has been reported in the media. I don't blame the media. I totally hold our Air India team to account that we have to do a better job of communication. Since that was not done, everything is reported as a technical snag. But none of these technical snags are of the nature that the aircraft cannot fly. It is some part missing, something missing so far. This is not to say that something else I will not see in the future. So at this point in time, this is the status. We have to give very strong communication on a daily basis, at least for the time being, until such time the confidence is restored.
But Mr. Chandrasekaran, I want to ask you, you're talking about communication to the media. I'm talking about real communication to the customers waiting at airports. The communication link there is probably the weakest ever at this point in time. Which is why you have frayed tempers, agitated families, people expecting family coming from different locations internationally. And for most people, India doesn't begin when they land in India. India begins when they get into an Air India flight that has a destination in India. What happens to that brand name, that complete faith in the brand?
See, I can say that in each one of these areas, whether it is communication at the gate or communication at the counters or every aspect, there has been a vast improvement, but it is not where it should be. Still there is a lot of gap. We are on a transformation journey. We have done about three years. In these three years, we have had to work on every dimension: fleet dimension, engineering, maintenance, safety, customer service, technology. We have made progress in all dimensions, but we are not where we should be. We know we can get there, but it is taking time.
Let me ask you, Mr. Campbell, the CEO of Air India, insensitivity came with his statement on 13th of June, which is a plagiarized statement. That is not something that we or anybody in India expects from Tata Group. Mr. Campbell's statement has been a complete copy-paste of a statement made after a crash in January in the United States of America. How can something like this pass the muster of the Tata Group?
I think there are a couple of answers here. The first one is, currently the focus is about five or six days now. Our focus currently is on addressing the needs of all those affected and also getting stability. Get the stability. The second point I want to make is, I think we can split hairs over the words, but I think if you look into the spirit of what has been said, I think we should take it at this moment on what is the matter that he conveyed and then start to address issues and let investigations get done.
But templated statements, almost AI-generated, is that what people desire?
See, I have not heard about this. I have not analyzed it word by word, but this is something we look into. You look into it.
Let me also ask you, there have been issues that have been raised even in the past ever since Operation Sindoor about maintenance jobs being done by the Turkish Technic company. I want to ask you, will this impact other planes that are maintained by them, and how are we going to address that issue?
See, there are maintenance agencies. There are many of them in different parts of the world, and these contracts have been set up long-term or for a period of time. As I said, most of the 787s are between three or four agencies, one of which is the Turkish airline or Technic. We have some maintenance of the 777s with them. But all these contracts, which agency we will do, all those things are being looked at on a priority basis because these cannot be changed overnight. In geopolitics, you get into these complexities, which we need to address, and we take it on a priority basis. That is very much under discussion now, not after the incident, much before.
Okay. So you were already working on that. Let me look at some of the political statements that have come up. The first one that I would want to refer to is Mr. Praful Patel, former civil aviation minister, who has brought in the angle of Singapore Airlines, which has a 25.1% stake in Air India. It's a shareholder, and Praful Patel has stated that it maintains a large number of Air India's widebody aircraft. They have been silent so far. This is what Mr. Praful Patel said early today on his social media account. Since then, Singapore Airlines has put out a statement that they have been in touch. I want to ask you, were one of the engines serviced by Singapore Airlines and their engineering division, and why have they been silent so far till Mr. Patel's tweet?
See, I can tell you, Singapore Airlines have been a great partner, and since we took over, they have helped us in many dimensions. Even some of the safety procedures, the best two processes, we have taken from Singapore Airlines. We have taken it from Vistara, and many of the processes where we needed best-in-class benchmarks, they have helped us. They have reached out. Even at this time, their CEO is in constant touch with me. Whether it is in customer experience and any other process, they are always available and very much in touch with us. I wouldn't say anything negative. If I have to say anything about Singapore Airlines, they have been working with us closely and they have been offering all the help they can.
But Mr. Praful Patel is somebody who has seen your tie-up with Singapore Airlines when you were Vistara, and then of course Air India is something he has looked at very closely. His comment on the silence of Singapore Airlines and the fact that your CEO of Air India is actually a nominee of Singapore Airlines does raise a few questions.
No, CEO is not a nominee of Singapore Airlines. In fact, when the CEO was hired by me, he had to quit Singapore Airlines and join Air India as an employee. At that time, Singapore Airlines did not have a stake. We owned 100% of Air India. Then when the Vistara merger happened with Singapore Airlines with Air India, then Singapore Airlines got their 25% stake. So he is not a nominee of Singapore Airlines.
But the question on the silence still remains. The silence of who? Singapore Airlines, as stated by a man who knows.
See, I don't know what he refers to by being silent. If he is referring to Singapore Airlines not putting out a press release or making a statement, I don't have any comment on that. But if you ask me whether Singapore Airlines have been a good partner, a good partner, have they approached us or offered us help? The answer is absolutely yes.
Let me also pick up a statement that was put out by Member of Parliament Supriya Sule. The other thing I want to say is that the 787s were also bought by Air India in 2013, and I think Minister Patil was there at that time. I don't know when he was the minister, but these are things that happened 10 years ago, 13 years ago. When government-owned Air India ordered the Dreamliners, correct? So is there a question to Mr. Praful? No, I'm not asking any question. I just got this tweet today. I didn't know what he was trying to say. I know him well, but I don't know what he meant. The only point I want to make is that there is nothing wrong with Singapore Airlines as a partner, and they have been good partners over the last three years. With respect to the Boeing 787 aircraft, they have been there for a long time.
Let me also ask about Supriya Sule, who tweeted traveling from Delhi to Pune on Air India flight AI2971. The flight is delayed by over three hours. No clear communication, no updates, no assistance, and very bad service. Such delays and mismanagement are becoming a norm with Air India. She said, 'Yeah, I saw that tweet immediately. I wanted to speak to her. In fact, I tried to get my office to get her, but I was in the flight. So I told the Air India team to immediately speak to her. My team told me that they were trying to get her on the earlier flight 550, but they couldn't contact her assistant. The weather conditions in Delhi were bad. So your team couldn't get in touch with the assistant. They were the protocol. Then they were also delayed because of the weather in Delhi. So I asked the team to speak to her, and I think she acknowledged. The feedback my team told me is that she was very understanding, but the only thing she said is why can't you announce things properly. She gave some very constructive, good feedback. But the problem is, whatever delay happened, a delay happened. Rajiv Shukla also said the recent spate of cancellations and delays of numerous Air India flights due to technical issues is deeply concerning. It's the same thing: a broken seat for the agriculture minister one day. All these things, if you had communicated better, if you had proactively said these flights are going to be cancelled every day 24 hours in advance, then the problem could have been averted. That's what we went through in the last six days. So is the Air India team overwhelmed or is it generally bad communication?
I think these six days they are very overwhelmed. After the 12th, they are managing everything, but this communications and all that is because this airspace also got closed. So one thing after another. But I think this statement today will help, and going forward they will have a process to announce everything every 24 hours at once.
Mr. Chandrasekaran, on the day of the crash, or maybe in a few hours of the crash, you also sent an open letter to your employees and you said this is probably the worst phase that the Tata Group is going through. Why do you call it the worst phase? 26/11 happened.
I don't know between the two tragedies, man-made tragedies, I can't even call it man-made till the investigation is done. Which was worse? I think there is no need to compare. I was there in Bombay when 26/11 happened. Normally when I was in TCS, I would be meeting somebody in chambers on most days. It so happened that that day I was not there. I just drove past Taj around 9:30. I reached home as I entered, my wife screamed watching television, so we saw what was happening live. I know what happened in 26/11. That was very gruesome. And this is of a different level, a different type of accident where we still don't know the reason. It is not a terrorist attack, and I hope it is not one of the things you referred to as sabotage. But I think the most sensible thing to do is for everybody to wait for investigation and we need a very transparent communication of the findings. Everyone needs to know. I need to know, you need to know, families need to know whenever it is done.
When do you think? I think they will give a preliminary finding in 30 days. After that, I don't know when the final finding will be. I have not been through this like you. I am as ignorant as anyone else. I have not gone through an airline crash or accident of a major magnitude where the Tata Group over 150 years has seen many crises, seen two world wars, seen 26/11. It is another accident of a gigantic proportion. To my mind, the magnitude, the scale at which it has happened, the number of innocent people not only the passengers, the bystanders, those young students in the college hospital. For me, it affected me personally a lot because in Pelling, I heard the story of a man getting shot with his wife. This person is a TCSer from Florida. He was traveling for a vacation after a few years, came to Kolkata, the first thing he did was go for a vacation. So one of your own. It's not a good feeling.
But everybody needs closure. Yes, that's why we need to know what happened. The closure will come only if we know what happened. And there are some people on that flight who chose there were options of other flights but they chose to fly with Air India. What would you want to say to them today? As I said before, nothing I can say that can be a consolation. I can only say I am with all of you. The Tata Group is with all of them. Every Tata person feels for them. The number of messages I have received from not only CEOs of Tata companies, many people across the Tata Group sending me emails every day, sending me messages, 'Sir, if there is anything that we can do, we want to be part of this.' Not that if there is anything we can do, we want to help you. We want to be part of this. Not only a lot of people, I tell you the business community has been great. So many people, everyone feels for this. I think something about India in situations like this, we come together.
Yes. There is a strange story. Two of your crew members, one a Kuki, one a Meitei. And you know, I heard about that confrontations in Manipur. Hopefully bring them together. Maybe.
But for 30 days, no closure, no accountability. Everything waits for 30 days. Would it be? We can't jump to any other conclusion. Who is accountable? We need to wait for further investigation until we know the truth.
Who do you hold accountable?
One expression that has come out is that nobody was there when the cremation of Captain Sabharwal was happening or some of the other crew members, employees, other people. That's not true. Navika, we discussed it at length the day before and who should be going for the rights for Sabharwal. The Chief Operating Officer of Air India was there. Our head of Tata Group CHR was there and a few more people were there from Tata Sons at different levels. A lot of Air India people were there. And we as a group will do multiple things. It is not about just being visible in one location. There will be a senior person who will be there in all the locations, whether it is our crew member or non-crew member. That is why we have created this whole organization. Some will be in Bombay, some in Gujarat, some in other parts of India. But I don't want to say it for any publicity, but we will definitely visit all the families. All the top people among ourselves will visit all the families, and we have a method of doing that. It is not for any big statement. So I think let's not make it a 'we care, we don't care.' Caring doesn't mean doing one thing. Caring is much deeper. I've also seen those tweets. I think it's best left there.
And to those families who have lost their loved ones, what would your message be today?
I would only say that we are grieving alongside you, and we want to be with you and we want to support you in every which way possible, as you desire. And we hope we can be with you and you can be part of the Tata family for life. For that, we need to create the system, as I told you, and we'll work on it.
On that note, Mr. Chandrasekaran, very despondent times. We do hope the cloud lifts and we know the truth. As you said, only the truth now will have the power to actually give us closure. In the meanwhile, from each of the 25 crore viewer family that we have in the Times Network, we would say that we are with those families. Sorry we can't bring back their loved ones, but maybe some of the questions and the answers that you've given will give them closure.
The Tata Group over the last 150 years has seen many crises: two world wars, 26/11, and now this crisis. Sometimes we have no control over preventing a crisis, and it happens, as cruel as it can be. And that shakes the belief, that shakes the trust in an organization. The group has come through all the times by showing character, by being honest, by being transparent. And that's what has preserved this group and preserved the trust of people in this group. I am a Tata product, and I have grown up with the values promoted by the group, be it the founder or what JRD Tata stood for or what Ratan Tata stood for. I had a much closer relationship with Ratan Tata, and we had a lot of friendship and mutual respect. But the values and the transparency, the compassion that has been shown by these people lives in the group. We are all inspired by that. The only thing I would say is that I am no JRD, I have no Ratan Tata, but we all are driven by these values. I hope we will conduct ourselves and show the character and determination so that everyone can be proud of us.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chandrasekaran. Thank you very much for speaking frankly and truthfully.
I was in an internal meeting when I first heard the news. It was quite shocking and something that is incomprehensible. Suddenly you heard, and it took me a few seconds to gather myself, and then immediately I rushed to the airport to fly to Ahmedabad.
How did you hear about it? Was it a colleague?
It is a call that I got from someone. 'Hey Chandra, what is happening?' Then immediately I went out, and my assistant was there. She switched on the TV, but I didn't wait for anything and immediately I rushed.
And what were your first thoughts? Did you get information on what were the casualties, what had happened, or was it just instinctive that you ran?
I knew immediately I have to go to Ahmedabad. So I asked the office to immediately arrange the flight. I will go to the airport. Then I started making calls as I was leaving office, sitting in the car, going to the airport. I was making calls to Air India, making calls to our people in Gujarat, our manager in Gujarat. There are many Tata companies. Getting information piece by piece. By the time I reached the airport and was getting into the flight, I knew the enormity. I was also watching online and taking calls and trying to assemble people. It was a very difficult situation. I was trying to think what should I be doing. Immediately the thought came to me that we need a response team on the ground and we need to have people. I didn't know how many Air India people will be there. So my thought was while I called our Air India people, I also called all our Tata colleagues. You are dealing with it, people are calling you at the same time because people want to know more. People think that I would know more, but I was actually like anyone else.
Did you initially hope that there would be some survivors, or did you from the word go know that it was a bad crash?
No, I was like everyone else, hoping that people will survive. You were praying like everyone else. 'God, what is happening?' Somehow you hoped that people will survive because you have not seen the site. You are only hearing stories. So I was only hoping that damage will be there but people will survive, or how many will survive. These were thoughts going through my mind.
But there is anger amongst the families. They are demanding answers. Many people are totally taken aback. If I just, you must have read these stories too. There was the Joshi family. The father was settled in London in UK, was coming back to pick up the wife and their three children. Those pictures have been there across social media, across various media, and the entire family was wiped out. Then there is the case of Arjun Manubhai Pollai, who came to just give his wife's ashes away. She had died earlier. He had left his two daughters, 8 and 12, back in London only to do the last rites of his wife, and now his children are orphaned. What would you say to them today?
I think it is the most horrific story that you can ever hear. It is such a heart-wrenching situation. It is very difficult to console anyone who has lost a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a son. It is very difficult to console. Whatever you may say, it cannot be sufficient enough to console them from this loss. So all I can say is that I grieve with them as much as they do. And when I say this, I mean it for me and all my Tata colleagues. We just want to consider them as part of the Tata family for life. But there is no life, they have gone. But the families that they leave today, we just have to be with them. All we can promise is we will be with them, and I will be with them. But it is very hard to console because you can't get the life back.
How would you be with them in helping them in every which way now and in the future? Those two young girls, 8 years old and 12 years old, what are they going to do without their parents? How will the Tata Group be with them?
So there are structures we want to put in place. One of the things that we have been thinking is to create, say, an AI171 trust, which will be available to them to look after. But there are many things, it is not only the financial need. There may be other needs. So we have got to think through and create the trust and other functioning infrastructure so that we can be with these families. Some will not need any help. Some will need some kind of help. Some will need emotional help. We don't know. We have to find this out. But the point is, it could happen to one of us. It is very hard to explain what these people will be going through, and it is very hard for us to console.
What would you want to say to them today?
It is an extremely difficult situation where I have no words to express to console any one of them. I just deeply regret that this whole accident happened in a TATA aircraft, and I feel very sorry. All we can do is to be with them at this time. We grieve with them and we do everything we can.
Have you spoken to any of these families?
I only so far met the lone survivor, and now we plan to visit as many families as possible myself and between me and my colleagues. We intend to visit all the families. But now currently our job is to help the families to come to Ahmedabad, collect the remains, and provide them some brief counseling, and then all the way to the final rites. Currently that is what we are doing. We have one Tata colleague as an angel deployed to work with each family, and there are 400 Tata people across companies in Ahmedabad. What we are trying to do is to be with each of these families in the next few days, get through this stage. Then we need to meet them, we need to support them, we need to see what we can do and what we need to do.
Mr. Chandrasekaran, on the first day there was a statement where you said you need a transparent investigation into what happened. I want to ask you, what have you reached with that probe? Because there would be one Tata investigation apart from the other investigations. So what have you found so far?
See, this is a crisis or a tragedy of a gigantic proportion. It has affected everybody. Yes, the families are affected, but the whole country is affected in a manner of speaking. There is a lot of fear, there is a lot of anger. I can understand that personally. I have also traveled a lot in my life. I used to travel 200 days internationally a year for 20 years, and I have faced flight diversions, flight cancellations, all kinds of issues. Every time one small thing happens, you get affected. And this, I can understand what is the level of fear that would have set in. So everyone wants to know what happened, and I can tell you I also want to know the same. Unless or otherwise we know what happened, there is no hope to fix it so that it doesn't happen again. If we know what has happened, then there is a chance to fix it so that it doesn't happen again. But we have to go through the process. Airline systems are quite complex, and airlines have been built with a lot of redundancy. If such redundancies are not there, these kind of incidents can happen very often. So the fact that these are rarity is because such systems are there. But still this occurred. So unless we wait for the investigation, we can get into a lot of speculations. There are speculations about human error, speculation about airlines, speculation about engines, maintenance, all kinds. There are a lot of speculations and a lot of theories. But the fact that I know so far is this particular aircraft, AI171, that particular tail, has a clean history. Clean history. The two engines: the right engine was a new engine put in March 2025, the left engine was last serviced in 2023 and due next maintenance check in December 2025, and both the engine histories are clean. When I saw that, I couldn't find anything with the team. Both the pilots are exceptional pilots. Captain Sabharwal has more than 11,400 hours of flying experience, and the first officer, Clive, has more than 3,400 hours of flying experience. What I hear from our colleagues is they were excellent pilots and great professionals. So we can't jump to any conclusions. There are a lot of theories, and you see them on YouTube, on media channels, on other channels, and a lot of experts. So all I would say is that unless we wait for the investigations to come through — and I am told by all the experts that the black box and the recorders will definitely tell the story — we just have to wait for that. Before that, it is very important not to jump to any conclusion.
So if you're saying everything was perfect, the engines, one was new, one was due for servicing only by the end of the year, then what went wrong? There are two questions that are being speculated on. There are only 2% of air crashes worldwide where the crash happens in the ascending period of the aircraft. Only 2%. And this AI171 was one of those flights where while taking off the crash happened with such low data in terms of percentage probability. What happened?
See, Navika, as I said, I am not an expert to be able to decipher this. All I know is the facts the records that I have seen. I am not to say this is ruled out, that is ruled out. The Tata Group cannot do any separate investigation. All the records will be with the DGCA, and the DGCA has set up those commissions, and they will do the investigation. There is no independent investigation possible. So no preliminary probe by Air India itself, internal probe. There is nothing we can do. We can only see our records. Were there any red flags? Were there any maintenance red flags that had been put out by DGCA? We understand two show causes. I have seen this record for these aircraft, the engines, and the pilot record. I sat with the team, discussed this, and I didn't see any red flags, nor did they highlight any red flags.
But DGCA has fined you in the recent past over the last maybe year or so, where there have been several fines that have been put on Air India for different kinds of red flags and maintenance issues. I can read out to you these. The DGCA put a 30 lakh fine because Air India and Air India Express did not meet operational robustness, maintenance related delays. There have been different kinds of fines.
See, now because the point I'm making is that what I am giving you the information is very specific to this tail number, these engines, this pilot, and this incident. Any safety-related issues we take it very seriously. There are two things in the airline. One is very core, which is safety, and there are other things that you have to do. All I would say is that anything safety-related, the first thing after you took over, and there are many things you yourself know, there are many makeup issues that are there still. There are some IFE doesn't work, some seats don't function. Those are customer experience issues we are trying to sort out. They are different from safety issues. Anything safety-related, there is no way DGCA allows us to fly. With respect to this specific aircraft, what I have seen is what I have told you. But this is not to say anything more because we need to wait for the investigation. There are some reports that say that June 3rd and June 5th there were two show cause notices from the DGCA. See, anything other than this particular aircraft we can talk about it separately, but all I'm giving you data is only with respect to this incident, this aircraft, these engines, and these pilots.
I want to ask you, the Turkish Technic maintaining Air India fleets has been raised as an issue that could probably be the cause in this case. How would you respond to that speculation?
In none of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft — we have 33 of them — none of them are maintained by Technic.
maintained by technique predominantly most of them are maintained in India by AESL or SA SIA engineering that is the engineering company AESL and uh SIA engineering company in Singapore. So these are the guys who are maintaining these aircrafts. They have nothing to do with any uh Turkish company for the 787 fleet. For the 787s, uh you have almost 33 787s in your fleet. The Dreamliners are suddenly the bad boys in the fleet. Uh there have been whistleblowers uh in the past who have uh raised many questions about the safety norms followed by Dreamliners. At any stage have your people raised safety concerns on the Dreamliners to you? See, practically speaking, there has never been a safety concern raised because Dreamliners have been operating globally for a very long time from I think 2008 or 2009 or something like that and R&D also procured them much before we you bought we bought R&D. So it has bought most of these I think when we bought R&D itself we had 27 Dreamliners and then we got additional six through Vistara. So Dreamliner specific complaint we have not received. So we have while we have ordered a large number of in the new orders we have ordered we have made a lot of order on A350 but we have also got options to buy 787 but there has never been a specific concern on the 787 but all these videos are also surfacing and they are doing a lot of uh viewing at this point in time but uh you must be aware of the fact that this is not only something that is surfacing now. The United States, the FAA is investigating into some of these uh charges that have been made by former staff of Boeing.
I I want to ask you the Federal Aviation Administration is looking at some of uh the exposes made by Sam Salipur and then there has been John Barnett who's raised some concerns now late John Barnett and they've said that these uh uh concerns did exist in the Boeing aircraft.
See these are things that are being dealt with the investigation agencies in the US but overall 787s have been flying for a very long time and in R&D it has been flying 787 for a long time.
So, so then let me ask you, you said and and I I completely bring to you the viewer feedback uh you know the customers out there who use uh your uh uh airline every day for commuting. They are at the end of their tether because there have been 13 Dreamliner flights that have been grounded between the 12th of June and today 6 days 66 flights that have been cancelled and it is it is spreading nervousness of the kind that has never been experienced before. Forget the flying experience. Just the fact that flights are getting cancelled, information is not coming in, the fear factor has taken over at airports. There is literally a riot out there. How do you explain this?
See, let me give you a uh full breakdown. First, I would like to say that there are more than 1100 flights that we fly every day. And in the last 6 days there have been in general anywhere from 5 to 16 or 18 flights depending on the day that have been cancelled. Okay. First you need that's that number. Second what has happened in this period of 6 days? There are three things are at work. The first thing is we have had to go through the DGCA checks. The moment the accident happened on the 12th, DGCA has mandated additional checks to be done on all the 787s. So we have had to ground many 787s and as a result we are short of aircrafts and we had to cancel those flights. That is one cause. How many of the 24 I'll out of the 33 about 24 have gone through the checks and the remaining are going through and it is it is taking time but it will get through. The second reason is also this whole airspace has got closed Iran and the whole thing that is happening in Middle East. So as a result flights have to be diverted. When the flights are diverted many other flights gets cancelled and these two have a knock-on effect because if the flight doesn't arrive in time that flight cannot take off and when that cannot take off we have to cancel it because there is no aircraft. The third is technical issues and when we do when we take off and land in any uh destination you you must know that we'll be doing land checks and every now and then it is common for in the land checks to find some spare part to be changed or something to be changed not in every flight but it does happen. So because of that there may be delays. If the spare part is there immediately they change and immediately they take off. If the spare part is going to take time and even if it comes and then they fix it they may lose the slot of taking off. Yeah. Not taking off or arriving landing because they will close the airports at 10:00 some some some places etc. So these are the three things that have caused. It is not all our technical errors but I agree with you and India could have been very proactive in terms of everyday saying if they're cancelling why are they cancelling as opposed to your flight getting cancelled and in these six days because see normally if they had not communicated then it wouldn't create so much fear but because of what happened on the June 12th anytime there is something happens to a delay or a diversion or cancellation even if I was traveling I will be afraid that is what has happened so you got to do a better job of communication we have not been good at it you you are admitting that communication hasn't been uh very strong absolutely and what are the corrective measures that you are undertaking so we have set up a uh uh communication team uh on top of what we have In India, there is a regular coms team and we have uh put a strategic communication team in place in the last 3 days and today we have put out the first comprehensive media statement explaining all this what happened on the June 12th and subsequently why there has been so many cancellations when you say and give them this number these the total number of flights flights we take this is the cancellations and why these cancellations have happen and then we have taken an additional step because we are going to feel this kind of a disruption for some more time. Our checks will be there also the airspaces closure will be there. So we have decided to reduce the number of aircrafts which are flying so that we can have a lot of buffer buffer aircrafts. You're doubling more than doubling the buffer aircrafts both in the all the weight body and the narrow body 787s 320s and the trip 7s we're creating more buffer and that statement is would have been issued by now.
My question to you is also about the fact that Boeing uh Boeing has had a series of uh bad press if you want to call it that but several questions that have been following them in recent times. uh in fact after uh the crash there has been a meeting between you and the Boeing head visiting India. I want to understand from you what was this meeting all about safety aspects of Boeing are they a concern and uh what is it that has been red flag to Boeing in terms of the hardware the aircraft themselves.
So I did u connect with both Boeing and G at the highest levels and uh to be frank they are top team from both the companies traveled and met with us. What I have asked both of them in parallel to the DGCA checks that we have gone through, I have asked them to check and tell us any issues are there in any of the aircraft or engines.
What were your conversations with Stephanie Pope? uh uh because many people are today talking about uh the spate of technical snags in quotes uh that have hit Air India in the recent uh week. Um are these technical snags because of design uh issues or are they regular uh stuff that often crop up?
See as I said the numbers that you have said comprises multiple groupings. Some are very deliberate grounding of planes because we had to go through DGC checks. Then a certain number had to go through or cancel primarily because of this airspace closure and diversions and disruptions due to that and the knock on effect. Then there is a third category. So since we have not put explained all of this so every cancellation has been reported in the media and I don't blame the media. I totally uh hold our India and our team to account that we have to do a better job of communication since that was not done. Everything is reported as a as a technical snag. But none of these technical snags are of the nature that the aircraft uh cannot fly. It is some part missing, something missing so far. And this is not to say that something else I will not see in the future. So at this point in time uh this is the status there is there is a you know t so we we have to give uh a very strong communication on a daily basis at least for the time being till such time the conference is restored.
But Mr. Chandra Shikhran, I I want to ask you, you're talking about communication to the media. I'm talking about real communication to the customers waiting at airports. The communication link there is probably the weakest ever at this point in time. Which is why you have frayed tempers, you have agitated families, uh you have uh people uh you know expecting family coming from different uh uh locations internationally and for most people India doesn't begin when they land in India. India begins when they get into an Air India flight that is got a destination in India. What happens to that brand name that uh uh complete faith in the brand area?
See I can I can say that um in each one of these areas whether it is communication at the gate or communication at the counters or every every aspect there has been a vast improvement but it is not where it should be. Still there is a lot of gap. So we are on a transformation journey. We have done about three years and in these three years we have had to work on every dimension whether it is in the fleet dimension whether it is in engineering whether it is maintenance whether it is safety whether it is customer service technology we made progress in all dimensions but nowhere we should be we are where we should be and we know we can get there but it is taking time.
Let me let me ask you uh Mr. Campell the CEO of Air India insensitivity uh I don't know to the power infinity with his statement coming in on 13th of June which is a plagiarized statement now that is not something that we or anybody in India expects from Tata group Mr. Campell statement has been a complete uh copy paste of a statement made after a crash in January in the United States of America. How can something like this pass the muster of the Tata group?
I think uh there are a couple of answers here. The first one is currently the focus is about five six days now. Our focus currently is on addressing the needs of all those affected and also get stability get the stability. The second point I want to make is I think we can split hairs over the words but I think if you look into this spirit of what has been said I think we we should take it at this moment on what is the matter that he conveyed and then start to address issues and let investigations get done but templated statements ments uh almost AI generated. Is that what people desire? See, I I have not I have heard about this. I have not analyzed it word by word, but this is something we look into.
You look into let me let me also ask you there have been issues that have been raised even in the past ever since operation Synindur about uh you know maintenance jobs being done by the Turkish uh technic company. I want to ask you will this uh uh you said it's not Dreamliners that it impacts are there other planes that are maintained by them and how are we going to address that issue.
see there are um uh maintenance agencies there are many of them in different parts of the world and these contracts have been set up long-term or for a period of time and as I said most all the 787s are between three or four uh agencies none of which is uh the Turkish airline or technique. We have some maintenance of the trip 7s with them. But all these contracts where we will do, which agency we will do, all those things are being looked at at priority basis because these cannot be changed overnight. And in geopolitics you get into these complexities and which we need to address and we take it on a priority basis and that is very much under discussion now not not after the incident much before.
Okay. So you were already working on that. Uh let me let me look at some of the political statements that have come up. The first one that I would want to refer to is Mr. Prul Patel uh former uh uh civil aviation minister uh who has brought in the angle of Singapore Airlines which has a 25.1% stake in Air India. Um it's it's a shareholder and Proful Patel has stated that it maintains a large number of Air India's widebody aircraft. They have been silent so far. This is what Mr. Proful Patel said early today uh on his social media account since then they've put out a statement Singapore Airlines that they have been in touch. I want to ask you were one of the engines serviced by Singapore Airlines and their engineering division and u why have they been silent so far till uh Mr. Patel's tweet?
See I can I can I can tell you Singapore Airlines have been a great partner and since we took over they have helped us in many dimensions even some of the safety procedures the best two processes we have taken from Singapore Airlines we have taken it from Vistara and many of the processes where we needed best-in-class benchmarks they have helped And they have reached out even at this time they in their CEO is in constant touch with me and whether it is in customer experience and any other process they always available and very much they are in touch with us and I wouldn't uh say anything negative if I have to say anything about Singapore Airlines they have been working with us closely and they have been offering all the help they can.
but Mr. Dr. Praful Patel is somebody uh who has seen your tie up with uh Singapore Airlines when you were Vistara and uh uh Singapore Airlines and then of course Air India is something he's looked at very closely and his comment on the silence of Singapore Airlines and the fact that uh your CEO of Air India is actually a nominee of Singapore Airlines does raise a few questions.
No, CEO is not a nominee of Singapore Airlines. In fact, uh when the CEO was uh hired by me, he had quit Singapore Airlines and join Air India as an employee. And that time Singapore Airlines did not have a stake. We won 100% of Air India. And then when the Vistara merger happened with Singapore Airlines with Air India, then Singapore Airlines got their 25% stake. So he's not a nominee of Singapore Airlines.
But the question on the silence still remains. The silence of who? Singapore Airlines. Uh as stated by a man who knows.
See, I I I I I don't know what uh he refers to by being silent. If he's referring to Singapore Airlines not putting out a press release or making a statement, I mean I I don't have any comment on that. But if you ask me whether Singapore Airlines have been a good partner, a good partner, have they approached us? Are they offering us help? Answer is absolutely yes.
Let me also pick up a statement that was put out uh by um member of parliament Supria Soule who
and then the other other thing I want to also say is that the uh 787s were also bought by our India in 2013 and u I think uh minister Patil was there at that time I don't know uh when uh when when he was the minister But these are things that happened 10 years ago, 13 years ago.
Yeah. When uh uh government owned Air India ordered the Dreamliners, correct?
Uh so so is there a question to Mr. Prul? No, I'm not asking any question. I'm not asking question. I just got this tweet today. Then I said I I didn't know what he was trying to say. Uh I know him well. Um but I don't know what he meant but the only point I want to make is that uh there is nothing wrong with Singapore Airlines as a partner and they have been good partners over the last 3 years and with respect to the uh Boeing uh 787 aircraft they've been there for a long time.
Let me also ask about Supria Soule uh who tweeted uh traveling from Delhi to Pune on Air India flight AI2971. The flight is delayed by over 3 hours. No clear communication, no updates, no assistance and very bad service. Such delays and mismanagement are becoming a norm with Air India. Uh she said.
Yeah, I saw the tweet immediately. I wanted to speak to her. In fact, I tried to I was trying to get my office to get her but I was in the flight. I was traveling. So I told her Arindia team to immediately speak to her. Um and what my team told me is that uh they were trying to get her on the earlier flight 550 flight uh but they couldn't uh contact her assistant or whatever. Then the weather conditions in Delhi was bad. So your team couldn't get in touch with assistant. They were the protocol protocol. Then they were uh uh also delayed because of the weather in uh Delhi. So I asked the team to speak to her and I think she acknowledged uh uh and then she the only thing I think the feedback my team told me is that she was very understanding but the only thing she said is that why can't you announce things properly and she gave some very constructive good feedback very good feedback and but the problem is whatever delay happened happened a delay uh happened.
Rajiv Shukla also uh recent spate of cancellations and delays of numerous air India flights due to technical issues is deeply concerning uh it's it's the same thing it was a broken seat for the agriculture minister one day it is the same thing all these things are if you had communicated better if you had proactively said these flights are going to be cancelled every day 24 hours in advance we say these flights are going to be canceled then the problem could have been affected averted that's what we went through in the last six days. So is the Air India team overwhelmed or is it generally bad communication?
I think I think these six days they're very overwhelmed they overwhelmed these six days I think they are after the 12th now the they are managing everything but this communications and all that because this uh airspace also got closed. So one one thing after another and then but I think this statement today will help and going forward they will have a process to announce everything every 24% at once.
Mr. Chandra Shaker uh on the day of the crash or maybe in a few hours of the crash you also sent uh an open letter to your employees and you said this is uh probably the worst phase uh that the Tata group is going through. Why why do you call it the worst phase 2611 happened?
uh I of course between the two uh tragedies man-made uh tragedies I don't know in this case what is uh I can't even call it man-made till the investigation is done but uh which was worse is there a way uh one can describe I think u I don't think there is any need to compare uh I was there in Bombay when the 2611 happened and uh normally Ally when I was in TCS usually I'll be meeting somebody in chambers on most of the days it so happened that that day I was not there I just drove past um Taj around 9:30 I reached home as I entered my home my wife screamed watching television so we kind of saw saw what was happening live so I know what happened in 2611 that was very gruesome And this is of a different level, different type of a um accident where we still don't know the reason. It is not a terrorist attack and I hope it is not um one of the one of the things that you referred to as sabotage. But I think the is there a poss group? Huh? Is there a possibility of No, no. I mean, you said it. I didn't say it. I I basically say I don't want to go through and pick anything. I sincerely believe that the most sensible thing to do is for everybody to wait for investigation and we need a very transparent communication of the findings.
Everyone needs to know. I need to know, you need to know. As families need to know whenever it's done. When do you think?
I think they will give a preliminary finding in 30 days. after that I don't know when the final finding will be and see I have not been through this like you as um ignorant if you will or like anyone else right I have not gone through a airline crash or u accident of a major magnitude where um the target group over the 150 years has seen many crisis seen two World Wars seen the 2611. It is another accident of a gigantic proportion and to my mind uh the magnitude the scale at which it has happened the number of innocent people not only the passengers the bystanders those young students in the college hospital. Um and for me it is uh u it affected me personally a lot because in pelgong I don't know where whether you heard about the story of uh uh a man getting shot with a wife and so this person is a TCSer from Florida. Okay. And then he was traveling for a vacation after a few years came to Kolkata. The first thing he did is to go for a vacation. Okay. So, one of your own. So, it's um uh it's not a good feeling. Yeah. From pelgam to Yeah.
But everybody needs closure. Mr. Everybody needs closure. Yes. That's why we need to know what happened. The closure will come only if it is what happened. And there are some people on that flight who chose there there were options of other flights but they chose to flight fly with Air India. What would you want to say to them today?
As I said before, nothing I can say that can be a consolation. I can only say I am with all of you. The Tata group is with all of them. Every Tata person feels for them. The number of messages I have received from not only CEOs of Tata companies, many people across the Tata group sending me mails every day, sending me messages. Sir, if there is anything that we can do, we want to be part of this. Not that if there is anything that we can do, we want to help you. We want to be part of this. And not only lot of people I tell you the business community has been great. So many people everyone feels for this. I think something about India in situations like this we come together.
Yes. There is a strange story. Two of your crew members one a kooki one a matei and you know uh yes. Yeah I heard about that. Confrontations in manipur. Hopefully bring bring them together. Maybe maybe but for 30 days no closure, no accountability. Everything waits for 30 days.
Would it be we can't jump to any other conclusion? Who's accountable? We need to wait further further investigation until you know the truth. Who do you hold account?
One one expression that has come out is that uh nobody was there when uh the cremation of Captain Sabharwal was happening or some of the other uh crew members, employees, other people. That's not uh true. Navika, we discussed it at length on the day before and who should be going for the rights for subural. The chief operating officer of our India was there. Our head of Tatas Tata group CHRO was there and few more people were there from Tatasense at different levels. A lot of our India people were there and we as a group will do multiple things. It is not about um just being visible in one location. There will be a senior person who will be there in all the locations whether it is our crew member or non-crew member. That is why we have created this whole organization. Some will be in Bombay, some will be in Gujarat, some will be in other parts of India. But I don't want to say it for any publicity but we will definitely visit all the families. All the top people among ourselves will visit all the families and we have a method of doing that and it is not for any uh big statement. So I think let's not I think let's not make it a um we care we don't care. I mean caring doesn't mean doing one thing caring is much uh much deeper and uh so I I have also seen those um tweets. I think it's best left there.
And to those families who have lost their loved ones, what would your message be today?
I would only say that uh we are grieving alongside you and we want to be with you and we want to support you in every which way possible and you desire and we hope we can be with you and you can be part of the TA family for life and for that we need to create the system as I told you and we'll work on.
On that note, uh Mr. Chandra Shakharin, uh very very despondent times. We do hope the cloud lifts and we know the truth. As you said, only the truth now will have the power uh to actually give us closure. In the meanwhile, from each of the 25 cr viewer family that we have in the Times network, we would say that we are with those families. Sorry we can't bring back their loved ones but maybe some of the questions and the answers that you've given will give them closure.
see the Tata group over the last I was in an internal meeting when I first heard the news. It was quite shocking and something that is incomprehensible that suddenly you heard and it took me a few seconds to gather myself and then immediately I rushed to the airport to fly to Ahmedabad.
How did you hear about it? Was it a colleague?
It is a call that I got from someone. Hey Chundra, what is happening? Then immediately I went out and my assistant was there. She switched on the TV and but I didn't wait for anything and immediately I rushed.
And uh what were your first thought? Uh did you get the information on what were the casualties like what had happened or uh was it just instinctive that you ran.
and I I knew immediately I have to go to Ahmedabad. So I asked the office to immediately arrange the flight. I will go to the airport and uh then I started making calls as I was leaving office sitting in the car and uh going to the airport. I was making calls to Air India, making calls to our people in Gujarat, our manager in Gujarat. uh there are many ka companies and uh so getting information uh piece by piece and by the time I reached the airport and and getting was getting into the flight I knew the the the enormity and I was also watching online and taking calls and trying to assemble people and you know it was a it was u uh a very difficult situation. And so I was trying to think what should I be doing immediately the thought came to me that immediately what we need is we need a response team on the ground and we need to have uh people I didn't know how many Arninda people will be there so my thought was while I called our India people I also called all our cla colleagues um and you know you are dealing with it people are calling you at the same time u because people want to know more people think that I would know more but I was actually like anyone else. Um so that's what happened.
Did you initially hope that there would be some survivors or did you from the word go know uh that it was a bad crash?
No no I was like uh everyone else was uh hoping uh that people will survive. You were praying like everyone else. Um God what is happening and uh you know somehow you hoped that uh people will survive because you have not seen the site you you you are only hearing stories. So I was only hoping that damage will be there but there people will survive or how many will survive. These were thoughts that were uh going through my mind.
But uh there is there is anger amongst the families. They are demanding answers. Uh many many people are totally taken aback and if I if I just you must have read these stories too. There was the Johi family. The father was settled in London in UK was coming back to pick up the wife and their three children. Those pictures have been there across social media across various media and uh the entire family was wiped out. Then there is the case of uh uh there was Arjun Manuhai Poleia who came uh to just give his wife's ashes away. She's she had died u earlier. He'd left his uh two daughters 8 and 12 back in London only to do the last rights of his wife and now his children are orphaned. What would you say to them today? these people.
I think it is the most horrific story that you can ever hear. It is such a heart-wrenching situation. It's very very difficult to console anyone who has lost a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a son. It is very very difficult to console. Whatever you may say, it cannot be sufficient enough to console them from this loss. So all I can say is that I grieve with them as much as they do. And when I say this, I mean it for me and all my Tata colleagues. We just want to consider them as part of the Tata family for life. But there is no life. It is they have gone. But the families that they live today, we just have to be with them. All we can promise is we will be with them and I will be with them. But it's very very hard to console because you can't get the life back.
How would you be with them? uh in helping them in every which way now and in the future. Those two young girls 8year-old and 12 year old what are they going to do without their parents and how will the Tata group be with them?
So there are structures we want to put in place. One of the things that we have been thinking is to create a say for example a A171 trust and then which will be available to them to look after but there are many things it's only not the financial need there may be other needs so we've got to think through and then create the trust and other functioning infrastructure so that we can be with this families some will not need any help. Some will need some kind of a help. Some will will need emotional help. We don't know. We will we have to find this out. But the point is it could happen to one of us. It is very very hard to explain what these people will be going through and it's very hard for us to uh console.
What would you want to say to them today?
It is a extremely difficult situation where I have no words to express to console any one of them. I just deeply regret that this whole accident happened in a Tortoine and I feel very sorry and all we can do is to be with them at this time. We grieve with them and we do everything we can.
Have you spoken to any of these families?
I only so far uh met the lone survivor and now we plan to visit uh as many families as possible myself in between me and my colleagues. We intend to visit all the families. But now currently our job is to help the families to come to Ahmedabad, collect the remains and provide them some brief counseling and then all the way to the final rights. Currently that is what we are doing. We have one Tata colleague as an angel deployed to work with each family and there are 400 Tata people across companies in Ahmedabad and what we're trying to do is to be with each of these families in the next few days get through this uh stage then we need to meet them. We need to support them. We need to see what we can do and what we need to do.
Mr. Chandra Shaker, uh on the first day there was a statement where you said you need a transparent investigation into what happened. I want to ask you where have you reached with that probe because there would be one Tata investigation apart from the other investigations. So what have you found so far?
See this is a crisis or a tragedy of a gigantic proportion. It has affected everybody. Yes, the families are affected but the whole country is affected in a manner of speaking. There is a lot of fear. There is a lot of anger. I can understand that personally. I have also traveled a lot in my life. I used to travel 200 days internationally a year for 20 years and I faced flight diversions, flight cancellations, all kinds of issues and every time one small thing happens you get affected. And this I can understand what is the level of fear that would have set in. So everyone wants to know what happened and I can tell you I also want to know the same unless or otherwise we know what happened. There is no hope to fix it so that it doesn't happen again. If you know what has happened then there is a chance to fix it so that it doesn't happen again but we have to go through the process. Airline systems are quite complex and airlines have been built with lot of redundancy. If such redundancies are not there these kind of incidents can happen very often. So the fact that these are rarity is because such systems are there but still this occurred. So unless or otherwise we wait for the investigation we can get into lot of speculations. There are speculations about human error, speculation about airlines, speculation about engines, maintenance, all kinds. There are a lot of speculations and a lot of theories. But the fact that I know so far is this particular aircraft A171 that particular tail has a clean history has a clean history clean history and the two engines both engines right engine was a new engine put in March 2025 the left engine was lost serviced in 2023 and due next maintenance check in 2025 December and both the engine histories are clean. When I saw that I couldn't find anything with the team. Both the pilots are exceptional pilots and the captain Sabural has more than 11,400 hours of flying experience and the first officer Clive has more than 3,400 hours of flying experience. What I hear from our colleagues is they were excellent pilots and great professionals. So we can't jump to any conclusions and there are a lot of theories and you see them in YouTube, you see them in media channels, you see them on other channels and lot of experts. So all I would say is that unless we wait for the investigations to come through and I am told by all the experts that the black box and the recorders will definitely tell the story and so we just have to wait for that and before that it's very important not to jump into any conclusion.
So if you're saying everything was perfect, the engines, one was new, one was due for servicing only by the end of the year, then what went wrong?
There are two questions. There are two questions that uh are being speculated on. There are only 2% of air crashes worldwide where the crash happens in the ascending period of the aircraft. Only 2%. And this AI71 was one of those flights where while taking off uh the crash happened with such uh low data in terms of percentage probability what happened? See Navika as I said I am not an expert to be able to decipher this. All I know is the facts, the records that I have seen. I'm not to say this is ruled out. That is ruled out.
You are the Tata group and you would you said you would have I have separate investigation. No, we can't do any separate any preliminary. No, we can't do any separate investigation. Invest all the records will be with the with the DGCA and the DGCA will has set up those commissions and they will do the investigation. There is no independent investigation possible. So no preliminary probe uh by air India itself internal. There is nothing we can do. We can only see our records.
Were there any red flags? Were there any maintenance red flags that had been put out by DGCA?
I have seen this I have seen this uh record for these aircrafts and the engines and the pilot record. I sat with the team discussed this and I didn't see any red flags nor did they highlight any red flags but DGCA has fined you in the recent past over the last maybe year or so uh where there have been several fines that have been put on Air India for different kinds of red flags and maintenance issues and I can I can read out to you these. The DGCA put a 30 lakh fine because Air India and Air India Express did not u meet operational robustness uh maintenance related delays. There have been different kinds of fines. See now the point I'm making is that what I am giving you the information is very specific to this this tail number and these engines and this pilot and this incident and any safety related issues we take it very seriously. See there are two things in the airline. One is very core which is the safety and there are other things that you have to do and all I would say is that anything safety related the first thing out to cover and there are many things you you yourself you know there are many makeup issues that are there still there are uh some ifs don't work some seats don't function okay those are customer experience issues we are trying to sort them out they are different from safety issues anything that safety issues is there issues there. There is no way DC allow us to fly and with respect to this specific aircraft what I have seen is what I have told you. But this is not to say anything more extra because we need to wait for the investigation.
There are some reports that say that June 3rd and June 5th there were two show cause notices from the DGCA.
See anything other than this particular aircraft we can talk about it separately but all I'm giving you data is only with respect to this incident this aircraft these engines and these pilots.
I want to ask you uh the Turkish technique u maintaining Air India fleets that has been raised as an issue that could probably be the cause in this case. How would you respond to that speculation?
In none of these 787 Dreamliner aircrafts, we have 33 of them. None of them are maintained by technique. Predominantly most of them are maintained in India by AESL or SA SIA engineering that is the engineering company AESL and uh SIA engineering company in Singapore. So these are the guys who are maintaining these aircrafts. They have nothing to do with any uh Turkish company for the 787 fleet. For the 787s, uh you have almost 33 787s in your fleet. The Dreamliners are suddenly the bad boys in the fleet. Uh there have been whistleblowers uh in the past who have uh raised many questions about the safety norms followed by Dreamliners. At any stage have your people raised safety concerns on the Dreamliners to you? See practically speaking there has never been a safety concern raised because streamliners have been operating globally for a very long time from I think 2008 or 2009 or something like that and R&D also procured them much before we you bought we bought R&D so it was bought most of these I think when we bought R&D itself we had 27 Dreamliners and then we got additional six through Vistara so Dreamliner specific specific complaint we have not received. So we have while we have ordered a large number of in the new orders we have ordered we have made a lot of order on A350 but we have also got options to buy 787 but there has never been a specific concern on the 787 but all these videos are also surfacing and they are doing a lot of uh viewing at this point in time but uh you must be aware of the fact that this is not only something that is surfacing now. The United States, the FAA is investigating into some of these uh charges that have been made by former staff of Boeing.
So, so then let me ask you, you said and and I I completely bring to you the viewer feedback uh you know the customers out there who use uh your uh uh airline every day for commuting. They are at the end of their tether because there have been 13 Dreamliner flights that have been grounded between the 12th of June and today 6 days 66 flights that have been cancelled and it is it is spreading nervousness of the kind that has never been experienced before. Forget the flying experience. Just the fact that flights are getting cancelled, information is not coming in, the fear factor has taken over at airports. There is literally a riot out there. How do you explain this?
Let me give you a full breakdown. First I would like to say that there are more than 1100 flights that we fly every day and in the last 6 days there have been in general anywhere from 5 to 16 or 18 flights depending on the day that have been cancelled. Okay, first you need that's that number. Second, what has happened in this period of 6 days? There are three things are at work.
The first thing is we have had to go through the DGCA checks. The moment the accident happened on the 12th, DGCA has mandated additional checks to be done on all the 787s. So we have had to ground many 787s and as a result we are short of aircraft and we had to cancel those flights. That is one cause. How many of the 24? Out of the 33, about 24 have gone through the checks and the remaining are going through and it is taking time but it will get through. The second reason is also this whole airspace has got closed, Iran and the whole thing that is happening in Middle East. So as a result flights have to be diverted. When the flights are diverted, many other flights get cancelled and these two have a knock-on effect because if the flight does not arrive in time, that flight cannot take off and when that cannot take off we have to cancel it because there is no aircraft. The third is technical issues. When we take off and land in any destination, you must know that we'll be doing line checks and every now and then it is common for in the line checks to find some spare part to be changed or something to be changed, not in every flight but it does happen. So because of that there may be delays. If the spare part is there immediately they change and immediately they take off. If the spare part is going to take time and even if it comes and then they fix it, they may lose the slot of taking off or landing because they will close the airports at 10:00 some places etc. So these are the three things that have caused. It is not all our technical errors but I agree with you and India could have been very proactive in terms of everyday saying if they are cancelling why are they cancelling, as opposed to a flight getting cancelled and in these six days because normally if they had not communicated then it would not create so much fear but because of what happened on the June 12th, anytime there is something happens to a delay or a diversion or cancellation, even if I was traveling I will be afraid. That is what has happened. So you got to do a better job of communication. We have not been good at it.
You are admitting that communication has not been very strong? Absolutely? And what are the corrective measures that you are undertaking?
We have set up a communication team on top of what we have in India. There is a regular comms team and we have put a strategic communication team in place in the last 3 days and today we have put out the first comprehensive media statement explaining all this what happened on the June 12th and subsequently why there have been so many cancellations. When you say and give them this number, this is the total number of flights we take, the cancellations and why these cancellations have happened. And then we have taken an additional step because we are going to feel this kind of a disruption for some more time. Our checks will be there. Also the airspace closure will be there. So we have decided to reduce the number of aircraft which are flying so that we can have a lot of buffer. We are more than doubling the buffer aircraft both in the wide body and the narrow body, 787s, 320s and the trip 7s. We are creating more buffer and that statement would have been issued by now.
My question to you is also about the fact that Boeing has had a series of bad press if you want to call it that but several questions that have been following them in recent times. In fact after the crash there has been a meeting between you and the Boeing head visiting India. I want to understand from you what was this meeting all about? Safety aspects of Boeing, are they a concern and what is it that has been red flag to Boeing in terms of the hardware the aircraft themselves?
I did connect with both Boeing and GE at the highest levels and to be frank their top team from both the companies traveled and met with us. What I asked both of them in parallel to the DGCA checks that we have gone through, I asked them to check and tell us any issues are there in any of the aircraft or engines.
What were your conversations with Stephanie Pope? Because many people are today talking about the spate of technical snags in quotes that have hit Air India in the recent week. Are these technical snags because of design issues or are they regular stuff that often crop up?
As I said the numbers that you have said comprises multiple groupings. Some are very deliberate grounding of planes because we had to go through the DGCA checks. Then a certain number had to go through or cancel primarily because of this airspace closure and diversions and disruptions due to that and the knock-on effect. Then there is a third category. So since we have not put explained all of this, every cancellation has been reported in the media and I do not blame the media. I totally hold our India and our team to account that we have to do a better job of communication since that was not done. Everything is reported as a technical snag. But none of these technical snags are of the nature that the aircraft cannot fly. It is some part missing, something missing so far. And this is not to say that something else I will not see in the future. So at this point in time this is the status. We have to give a very strong communication on a daily basis at least for the time being till such time the confidence is restored.
But Mr. Chandrasekaran, I want to ask you, you are talking about communication to the media, I am talking about real communication to the customers waiting at airports. The communication link there is probably the weakest ever at this point in time which is why you have frayed tempers, you have agitated families, you have people expecting family coming from different locations internationally. And for most people, India does not begin when they land in India. India begins when they get into an Air India flight that has a destination in India. What happens to that brand name, that complete faith in the brand area?
I can say that in each one of these areas, whether it is communication at the gate or communication at the counters or every aspect, there has been a vast improvement but it is not where it should be. Still there is a lot of gap. So we are on a transformation journey. We have done about three years and in these three years we have had to work on every dimension whether it is in the fleet dimension, whether it is in engineering, whether it is maintenance, whether it is safety, whether it is customer service, technology. We made progress in all dimensions but nowhere we should be where we should be and we know we can get there but it is taking time.
Let me ask you, Mr. Campbell the CEO of Air India, insensitivity to the power infinity with his statement coming in on 13th of June which is a plagiarized statement now that is not something that we or anybody in India expects from Tata Group. Mr. Campbell's statement has been a complete copy-paste of a statement made after a crash in January in the United States of America. How can something like this pass the muster of the Tata group?
I think there are a couple of answers here. The first one is currently the focus is about five six days now. Our focus currently is on addressing the needs of all those affected and also get stability. The second point I want to make is I think we can split hairs over the words but I think if you look into the spirit of what has been said, I think we should take it at this moment on what is the matter that he conveyed and then start to address issues and let investigations get done.
But templated statements almost AI generated. Is that what people desire?
I have not heard about this. I have not analyzed it word by word but this is something we look into.
You look into. Let me also ask you, there have been issues that have been raised even in the past ever since Operation Sindur about maintenance jobs being done by the Turkish technic company. I want to ask you, will this impact only Dreamliners or are there other planes that are maintained by them and how are we going to address that issue?
There are maintenance agencies, there are many of them in different parts of the world and these contracts have been set up long term or for a period of time. As I said, most all the 787s are between three or four agencies, one of which is the Turkish airline or technique. We have some maintenance of the trip 7s with them. But all these contracts where we will do, which agency we will do, all those things are being looked at on priority basis because these cannot be changed overnight. In geopolitics you get into these complexities which we need to address and we take it on a priority basis and that is very much under discussion now, not after the incident, much before.
Okay, so you were already working on that. Let me look at some of the political statements that have come up. The first one that I would want to refer to is Mr. Praful Patel, former civil aviation minister, who has brought in the angle of Singapore Airlines which has a 25.1% stake in Air India. It is a shareholder and Praful Patel has stated that it maintains a large number of Air India's widebody aircraft. They have been silent so far. This is what Mr. Praful Patel said early today on his social media account. Since then they have put out a statement Singapore Airlines that they have been in touch. I want to ask you, were one of the engines serviced by Singapore Airlines and their engineering division and why have they been silent so far till Mr. Patel's tweet?
I can tell you Singapore Airlines have been a great partner and since we took over, they have helped us in many dimensions. Even some of the safety procedures, the best processes we have taken from Singapore Airlines, we have taken it from Vistara and many of the processes where we needed best-in-class benchmarks, they have helped us and they have reached out even at this time their CEO is in constant touch with me and whether it is in customer experience and any other process they are always available and very much they are in touch with us. I would not say anything negative about Singapore Airlines, they have been working with us closely and they have been offering all the help they can.
But Mr. Praful Patel is somebody who has seen your tie-up with Singapore Airlines when you were Vistara and then of course Air India is something he has looked at very closely and his comment on the silence of Singapore Airlines and the fact that your CEO of Air India is actually a nominee of Singapore Airlines does raise a few questions.
No, the CEO is not a nominee of Singapore Airlines. In fact, when the CEO was hired by me, he had to quit Singapore Airlines and join Air India as an employee. And that time Singapore Airlines did not have a stake. We own 100% of Air India. And then when the Vistara merger happened with Singapore Airlines with Air India, then Singapore Airlines got their 25% stake. So he is not a nominee of Singapore Airlines.
But the question on the silence still remains. The silence of who? Singapore Airlines as stated by a man who knows.
I do not know what he refers to by being silent. If he is referring to Singapore Airlines not putting out a press release or making a statement, I do not have any comment on that. But if you ask me whether Singapore Airlines have been a good partner, have they approached us, are they offering us help, the answer is absolutely yes.
Let me also pick up a statement that was put out by member of parliament Supriya Sule. The other thing I want to also say is that the 787s were also bought by Air India in 2013 and I think minister Patil was there at that time. I do not know when he was the minister, but these are things that happened 10 years ago, 13 years ago. When government owned Air India ordered the Dreamliners, correct? So is there a question to Mr. Praful? No, I am not asking any question. I just got this tweet today. Then I said I did not know what he was trying to say. I know him well, but I do not know what he meant. But the only point I want to make is that there is nothing wrong with Singapore Airlines as a partner and they have been good partners over the last 3 years and with respect to the Boeing 787 aircraft they have been there for a long time.
Let me also ask about Supriya Sule who tweeted traveling from Delhi to Pune on Air India flight AI2971. The flight is delayed by over 3 hours. No clear communication, no updates, no assistance and very bad service. She said, 'Yeah, I saw that tweet immediately. I wanted to speak to her. In fact, I tried to get my office to get her but I was in the flight. I was traveling. So I told our Air India team to immediately speak to her. And what my team told me is that they were trying to get her on the earlier flight 550 flight but they could not contact her assistant or whatever. Then the weather conditions in Delhi was bad. So your team could not get in touch with assistant. They were protocol. Then they were also delayed because of the weather in Delhi. So I asked the team to speak to her and I think she acknowledged and then she the only thing I think the feedback my team told me is that she was very understanding but the only thing she said is that why can you not announce things properly and she gave some very constructive good feedback very good feedback. But the problem is whatever delay happened, delay happened. Rajiv Shukla also recent spate of cancellations and delays of numerous Air India flights due to technical issues is deeply concerning. It is the same thing. It was a broken seat for the agriculture minister one day. It is the same thing. All these things are if you had communicated better, if you had proactively said these flights are going to be cancelled every day 24 hours in advance we say these flights are going to be canceled then the problem could have been affected.
That is what we went through in the last six days. So is the Air India team overwhelmed or is it generally bad communication?
I think these six days they are very overwhelmed. After the 12th, they are managing everything but this communications and all that because this airspace also got closed. So one thing after another. But I think this statement today will help and going forward they will have a process to announce everything every 24 hours at once.
Mr. Chandrasekaran, on the day of the crash or maybe in a few hours of the crash you also sent an open letter to your employees and you said this is probably the worst phase that the Tata group is going through. Why do you call it the worst phase? 26/11 happened?
Of course between the two tragedies man-made tragedies I do not know in this case what is, I cannot even call it man-made till the investigation is done. But which was worse? Is there a way one can describe? I do not think there is any need to compare. I was there in Bombay when the 26/11 happened and normally when I was in TCS, usually I will be meeting somebody in Chambers on most of the days. It so happened that that day I was not there, I just drove past Taj around 9:30. I reached home as I entered my home, my wife screamed watching television so we kind of saw what was happening live. So I know what happened in 26/11. That was very gruesome. And this is of a different level, different type of an accident where we still do not know the reason. It is not a terrorist attack and I hope it is not one of the things that you referred to as sabotage.
Is there a possibility of sabotage?
No, I mean you said it, I did not say it. I basically say I do not want to go through and pick anything. I sincerely believe that the most sensible thing to do is for everybody to wait for investigation and we need a very transparent communication of the findings. Everyone needs to know. I need to know. You need to know. Assemblies need to know whenever it is done.
When do you think? I think they will give a preliminary finding in 30 days. After that, I do not know when the final finding will be. And see, I have not been through this like you. I am as ignorant if you will or like anyone else. All right. I have not gone through an airline crash or accident of a major magnitude where the target group over the 150 years has seen many crises, seen two world wars, seen the 26/11. It is another accident of a gigantic proportion and to my mind the magnitude, the scale at which it has happened, the number of innocent people not only the passengers, the bystanders, those young students in the college hospital. And for me it affected me personally a lot because in Palka, I do not know whether you heard the story of a man getting shot with a wife and so this person is a TCSer from Florida. Okay. He was traveling for a vacation after a few years. Came to Kolkata. The first thing he did is to go for a vacation. Okay, so one of your own. So it is not a good feeling. Yeah, from Pelgong to... But everybody needs closure. Yes, that is why we need to know what happened. The closure will come only if it is known what happened.
And there are some people on that flight who chose, there were options of other flights but they chose to fly with Air India. What would you want to say to them today?
As I said before, nothing I can say that can be a consolation. I can only say I am with all of you. The Tata group is with all of them. Every Tata person feels for them. The number of messages I have received from not only CEOs of Tata companies, many people across the Tata group sending me mails every day, sending me messages, sir, if there is anything that we can do, we want to be part of this. Not that if there is anything that we can do, we want to help you. We want to be part of this. And not only other people, I tell you the business community has been great. So many people, everyone feels for this. I think something about India in situations like this, we come together.
Yes. There is a strange story. Two of your crew members, one a cookie, one a matey. And you know, yes. Yes. Yeah. I heard about that confrontations in Manipur. Hopefully bring them together. Maybe. But for 30 days no closure, no accountability. Everything waits for 30 days. Could it be? We cannot jump to any other conclusion. Who is accountable? We need to wait further investigation until you know the truth. Who do you hold accountable?
One expression that has come out is that nobody was there when the cremation of Captain Sabharwal was happening or some of the other crew members, employees, other people. That is not true. Navika, we discussed it at length on the day before and who should be going for the rights for Sabharwal. The chief operating officer of Air India was there. Our head of Tata group CHRO was there and few more people were there from Tata Sons at different levels. A lot of Air India people were there and we as a group will do multiple things. It is not about just being visible in one location. There will be a senior person who will be there in all the locations whether it is our crew member or non-crew member. That is why we have created this whole organization. Some will be in Bombay, some will be in Gujarat, some will be in other parts of India. But I do not want to say it for any publicity but we will definitely visit all the families. All the top people among ourselves will visit all the families and we have a method of doing that and it is not for any big statement. So I think let us not make it a we care, we do not care. Caring does not mean doing one thing, caring is much deeper. So I have also seen those tweets. I think it is best left there.
And to those families who have lost their loved ones, what would your message be today?
I would only say that we are grieving alongside you and we want to be with you and we want to support you in every which way possible and you desire and we hope we can be with you and you can be part of the Tata family for life and for that we need to create the system as I told you and we will work on it.
On that note, Mr. Chandrasekaran, very despondent times. We do hope the cloud lifts and we know the truth. As you said, only the truth now will have the power to actually give us closure. In the meanwhile, from each of the 25 crore viewer family that we have in the Times network, we would say that we are with those families. Sorry we cannot bring back their loved ones but maybe some of the questions and the answers that you have given will give them closure. See the Tata group over the last... I was in an internal meeting when I first heard the news. It was quite shocking and something that is incomprehensible that suddenly you heard and it took me a few seconds to gather myself and then immediately I rushed to the airport to fly to Ahmedabad. How did you hear about it? Was it a colleague? It is a call that I got from someone. Hey Chandra, what is happening? Then immediately I went out and my assistant was there. She switched on the TV and but I did not wait for anything and immediately I rushed. And what were your first thought? Did you get the information on what were the casualties like what had happened or was it just instinctive that you ran and I knew immediately I have to go to Ahmedabad. So I asked the office to immediately arrange the flight. I will go to the airport and then I started making calls as I was leaving office sitting in the car and going to the airport. I was making calls to Air India, making calls to our people in Gujarat, our manager in Gujarat. There are many Tata companies and so getting information piece by piece and by the time I reached the airport and getting into the flight I knew the enormity and I was also watching online and taking calls and trying to assemble people. It was a very difficult situation. I was trying to think what should I be doing. Immediately the thought came to me that what we need is a response team on the ground and we need to have people. I did not know how many Air India people will be there. So my thought was while I called Air India people I also called all our Tata colleagues. You are dealing with it, people are calling you at the same time because people want to know more, people think that I would know more but I was actually like anyone else. So that is what happened.
Did you initially hope that there would be some survivors or from the word go know that it was a bad crash? No, I was like everyone else was hoping that people will survive. You were praying like everyone else. God what is happening and somehow you hoped that people will survive because you have not seen the site. You are only hearing stories. So I was only hoping that damage will be there but people will survive or how many will survive. These were thoughts that were going through my mind.
But there is anger amongst the families. They are demanding answers. Many people are totally taken aback and if I just read these stories too. There was the Johi family. The father was settled in London in UK was coming back to pick up the wife and their three children. Those pictures have been there across social media across various media and the entire family was wiped out. Then there is the case of Arjun Manuhai Poleia who came to just give his wife's ashes away. She had died earlier. He left his two daughters 8 and 12 back in London only to do the last rites of his wife and now his children are orphaned. What would you say to them today these people?
I think it is the most horrific story that you can ever hear. It is such a heart-wrenching situation. It is very difficult to console anyone who has lost a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a son. It is very difficult to console. Whatever you may say, it cannot be sufficient enough to console them from this loss. So all I can say is that I grieve with them as much as they do. And when I say this, I mean it for me and all my Tata colleagues. We just want to consider them as part of the Tata family for life. But there is no life. They have gone. But the families that they live today, we just have to be with them. All we can promise is we will be with them and I will be with them. But it is very hard to console because you cannot get the life back.
How would you be with them? In helping them in every which way now and in the future. Those two young girls 8-year-old and 12-year-old, what are they going to do without their parents and how will the Tata group be with them?
There are structures we want to put in place. One of the things that we have been thinking is to create say for example a 171 trust and then which will be available to them to look after. But there are many things, it is only not the financial need, there may be other needs. So we have got to think through and then create the trust and other functioning infrastructure so that we can be with these families. Some will not need any help. Some will need some kind of help. Some will need emotional help. We do not know. We will have to find this out. But the point is it could happen to one of us. It is very hard to explain what these people will be going through and it is very hard for us to console. What would you want to say to them today? It is an extremely difficult situation where I have no words to express to console any one of them. I just deeply regret that this whole accident happened in a Tata line and I feel very sorry and all we can do is to be with them at this time. We grieve with them and we do everything we can.
Have you spoken to any of these families?
I only so far met the lone survivor and now we plan to visit as many families as possible myself and between me and my colleagues we intend to visit all the families. But now currently our job is to help the families to come to Ahmedabad, collect the remains and provide them some brief counseling and then all the way to the final rites. Currently that is what we are doing. We have one Tata colleague as an angel deployed to work with each family and there are 400 Tata people across companies in Ahmedabad and what we are trying to do is to be with each of these families in the next few days get through this stage. Then we need to meet them. We need to support them. We need to see what we can do and what we need to do.
Mr. Chandrasekaran, on the first day there was a statement where you said you need a transparent investigation into what happened. I want to ask you where have you reached with that probe because there would be one Tata investigation apart from the other investigations. So what have you found so far?
This is a crisis or a tragedy of a gigantic proportion. It has affected everybody. Yes, the families are affected but the whole country is affected in a manner of speaking. There is a lot of fear. There is a lot of anger. I can understand that personally. I have also traveled a lot in my life. I used to travel 200 days internationally a year for 20 years and I have faced flight diversions, flight cancellations, all kinds of issues and every time one small thing happens you get affected. And this I can understand what is the level of fear that would have set in. So everyone wants to know what happened. I can tell you I also want to know the same. Unless or otherwise we know what happened, there is no hope to fix it so that it does not happen again. If we know what has happened then there is a chance to fix it so that it does not happen again. But we have to go through the process. Airline systems are quite complex and airlines have been built with a lot of redundancy. If such redundancies are not there these kind of incidents can happen very often. So the fact that these are rarity is because such systems are there but still this occurred. So unless or otherwise we wait for the investigation we can get into a lot of speculations. There were speculations about human error, speculation about airlines, speculation about engines, maintenance, all kinds. There are a lot of speculations and a lot of theories. But the fact that I know so far is this particular aircraft, A171, that particular tail, has a clean history, a clean history. The two engines both engines right engine was a new engine put in March 2025, the left engine was last serviced in 2023 and due next maintenance check in 2025 December and both the engine histories are clean. When I saw that I could not find anything with the team. Both the pilots are exceptional pilots and Captain Sabharwal has more than 11,400 hours of flying experience and the first officer has more than 3,400 hours of flying experience. What I hear from our colleagues is they were excellent pilots and great professionals. So we cannot jump to any conclusions and there are a lot of theories and you see them on YouTube, you see them in media channels, you see them on other channels and a lot of experts. So all I would say is that unless we wait for the investigations to come through and I am told by all the experts that the black box and the recorders will definitely tell the story and so we just have to wait for that and before that it is very important not to jump into any conclusion.
So if you are saying everything was perfect, the engines, one was new, one was due for servicing only by the end of the year, then what went wrong? There are two questions that are being speculated on. There are only 2% of air crashes worldwide where the crash happens in the ascending period of the aircraft. Only 2%. And this AI71 was one of those flights where while taking off the crash happened with such low data in terms of percentage probability what happened.
Navika, as I said I am not an expert to be able to decipher this. All I know is the facts the records that I have seen. I am not to say this is ruled out, that is ruled out.
And you said you would have a separate investigation? No, we cannot do any separate investigation. All the records will be with the DGCA and the DGCA has set up those commissions and they will do the investigation. There is no independent investigation possible. So no preliminary probe by Air India itself internal probe. There is nothing we can do. We can only see our records. Were there any red flags? Were there any maintenance red flags that had been put out by DGCA? We understand two show cause notices.
I have seen this record for these aircrafts and the engines and the pilot record. I sat with the team discussed this and I did not see any red flags nor did they highlight any red flags.
But DGCA has fined you in the recent past over the last maybe year or so where there have been several fines that have been put on Air India for different kinds of red flags and maintenance issues. I can read out to you these. The DGCA put a 30 lakh fine because Air India and Air India Express did not meet operational robustness dealing with maintenance related delays. There have been different kinds of fines.
The point I am making is that what I am giving you the information is very specific to this tail number and these engines and this pilot and this incident. Any safety related issues we take it very seriously. There are two things in the airline. One is very core which is the safety and there are other things that you have to do. All I would say is that anything safety related the first thing is to cover. There are many makeup issues that are there still. Some IFE do not work, some seats do not function. Those are customer experience issues we are trying to sort them out. They are different from safety issues. Anything that is safety issues, there is no way DGCA allows us to fly. With respect to this specific aircraft what I have seen is what I have told you but this is not to say anything more extra because we need to wait for the investigation.
There are some reports that say that June 3rd and June 5th there were two show cause notices from the DGCA.
Anything other than this particular aircraft we can talk about it separately but all I am giving you data is only with respect to this incident, this aircraft, these engines and these pilots.
I want to ask you, the Turkish technique maintaining Air India fleets that has been raised as an issue that could probably be the cause in this case. How would you respond to that speculation?
In none of these 787 Dreamliner aircraft we have 33 of them, none of them are maintained by technique. Predominantly most of them are maintained in India by AESL or SIA engineering, that is the engineering company AESL and SIA engineering company in Singapore. These are the guys who are maintaining these aircraft. They have nothing to do with any Turkish company for the 787 fleet.
For the 787s, you have almost 33 787s in your fleet. The Dreamliners are suddenly the bad boys in the fleet. There have been whistleblowers in the past who have raised many questions about the safety norms followed by Dreamliners. At any stage have your people raised safety concerns on the Dreamliners to you?
Practically speaking, there has never been a safety concern raised because Dreamliners have been operating globally for a very long time from 2008 or 2009 or something like that and Air India also procured them much before we bought Air India. It had bought most of these, I think when we bought Air India itself we had 27 Dreamliners and then we got additional six through Vistara. So Dreamliner specific complaint we have not received. We have ordered a large number of in the new orders we have ordered we have made a lot of orders on A350 but we have also got options to buy 787 but there has never been a specific concern on the 787.
But all these videos are also surfacing and they are doing a lot of viewing at this point in time but you must be aware of the fact that this is not only something that is surfacing now. The United States, the FAA is investigating into some of these charges that have been made by former staff of Boeing. I want to ask you the Federal Aviation Administration is looking at some of the exposes made by Sam Cipple and then there has been John Barnett who has raised some concerns now late John Barnett and they have said that these concerns did exist in the Boeing aircraft.
These are things that are being dealt with the investigation agencies in the US but overall 787s have been flying for a very long time and in Air India it has been flying 787 for a long time.
So then let me ask you, you said and I completely bring to you the viewer feedback, the customers out there who use your airline every day for commuting. They are at the end of their tether because there have been 13 Dreamliner flights that have been grounded between the 12th of June and today. Six days, 66 flights that have been cancelled and it is spreading nervousness of the kind that has never been experienced before. Forget the flying experience. Just the fact that flights are getting cancelled, information is not coming in, the fear factor has taken over at airports. There is literally a riot out there. How do you explain this?
Navika, let me give you a full breakdown. First I would like to say that there are more than 1,100 flights that we fly every day and in the last 6 days there have been in general anywhere from 5 to 16 or 18 flights depending on the day that have been cancelled. First you need that number. Second, what has happened in this period of 6 days? There are three things at work. The first thing is we have had to go through the DGCA checks. The moment the accident happened on the 12th, DGCA has mandated additional checks to be done on all the 787s. So we have had to ground many 787s and as a result we are short of aircraft and we had to cancel those flights. That is one cause. How many of the 24? Out of the 33, about 24 have gone through the checks and the remaining are going through and it is taking time but it will get through. The second reason is also this whole airspace has got closed, Iran and the whole thing that is happening in Middle East. So as a result flights have to be diverted. When the flights are diverted, many other flights get cancelled and these two have a knock-on effect because if the flight does not arrive in time, that flight cannot take off and when that cannot take off we have to cancel it because there is no aircraft. The third is technical issues. When we take off and land in any destination, you must know that we will be doing line checks and every now and then it is common for in the line checks to find some spare part to be changed or something to be changed, not in every flight but it does happen. So because of that there may be delays. If the spare part is there immediately they change and immediately they take off. If the spare part is going to take time and even if it comes and then they fix it, they may lose the slot of taking off or landing because they will close the airports at 10:00 some places etc. So these are the three things that have caused. It is not all our technical errors but I agree with you. Air India could have been very proactive in terms of everyday saying if they are cancelling why are they cancelling, as opposed to a flight getting cancelled and in these six days because normally if they had not communicated then it would not create so much fear but because of what happened on the June 12th, anytime there is something happens to a delay or a diversion or cancellation, even if I was traveling I will be afraid. So you got to do a better job of communication. We have not been good at it. You are admitting that communication has not been very strong. Absolutely. And what are the corrective measures that you are undertaking?
Buffer aircrafts. You're doubling more than doubling the buffer aircrafts both in the all the weight body and the narrow body 787s, 320s, and the trip 7s. You're creating more buffer and that statement would have been issued by now. My question to you is also about the fact that Boeing has had a series of bad press, if you want to call it that, but several questions that have been following them in recent times. In fact, after the crash there has been a meeting between you and the Boeing head visiting India. I want to understand from you what was this meeting all about? Safety aspects of Boeing, are they a concern, and what is it that has been a red flag to Boeing in terms of the hardware, the aircraft themselves?
So I did connect with both Boeing and G at the highest levels, and to be frank, their top team from both the companies traveled and met with us. What I have asked both of them in parallel to the DGCA checks that we have gone through, I have asked them to check and tell us if any issues are there in any of the aircraft or engines.
What were your conversations with Stephanie Pope? Because many people are today talking about the spate of technical snags, in quotes, that have hit Air India in the recent week. Are these technical snags because of design issues or are they regular stuff that often crop up?
See, as I said, the numbers that you have said comprise multiple groupings. Some are very deliberate grounding of planes because we had to go through the DGCA checks. Then a certain number had to be cancelled primarily because of this airspace closure and diversions and disruptions due to that and the knock-on effect. Then there is a third category. Since we have not explained all of this, every cancellation has been reported in the media, and I don't blame the media. I totally hold our India and our team to account that we have to do a better job of communication since that was not done. Everything is reported as a technical snag. But none of these technical snags are of the nature that the aircraft cannot fly. It is some part missing, something missing so far. And this is not to say that I will not see something else in the future. So at this point in time, this is the status. There is a, you know, so we have to give a very strong communication on a daily basis, at least for the time being, till such time the confidence is restored.
But Mr. Chandrasekaran, I want to ask you, you're talking about communication to the media. I'm talking about real communication to the customers waiting at airports. The communication link there is probably the weakest ever at this point in time, which is why you have frayed tempers, you have agitated families, you have people expecting family coming from different locations internationally. And for most people, India doesn't begin when they land in India. India begins when they get into an Air India flight that has a destination in India. What happens to that brand name, that complete faith in the brand area?
I can say that in each one of these areas, whether it is communication at the gate or communication at the counters or every aspect, there has been a vast improvement, but it is not where it should be. Still there is a lot of gap. So we are on a transformation journey. We have done about three years, and in these three years we have had to work on every dimension, whether it is in the fleet dimension, whether it is in engineering, whether it is maintenance, whether it is safety, whether it is customer service, technology. We made progress in all dimensions, but nowhere where we should be. We know we can get there, but it is taking time.
Let me ask you, Mr. Campbell, the CEO of Air India, insensitivity, I don't know to the power infinity, with his statement coming in on 13th of June, which is a plagiarized statement. Now that is not something that we or anybody in India expects from Tata group. Mr. Campbell's statement has been a complete copy-paste of a statement made after a crash in January in the United States of America. How can something like this pass the muster of the Tata group?
I think there are a couple of answers here. The first one is currently the focus is about five, six days now. Our focus currently is on addressing the needs of all those affected and also to get stability. The second point I want to make is, I think we can split hairs over the words, but I think if you look into the spirit of what has been said, I think we should take it at this moment on what is the matter that he conveyed, and then start to address issues and let investigations get done.
But templated statements, almost AI-generated. Is that what people deserve?
See, I have not heard about this. I have not analyzed it word by word, but this is something we will look into.
You'll look into it. Let me also ask you, there have been issues that have been raised even in the past, ever since operation Sindhudurg, about maintenance jobs being done by the Turkish Technic company. I want to ask you, will this affect you? You said it's not Dreamliners that it impacts. Are there other planes that are maintained by them, and how are we going to address that issue?
See, there are maintenance agencies, there are many of them in different parts of the world, and these contracts have been set up long-term or for a period of time. As I said, most of the 787s are between three or four agencies, one of which is the Turkish airline or Technic. We have some maintenance of the trip 7s with them. But all these contracts, where we will do, which agency we will do, all those things are being looked at on a priority basis because these cannot be changed overnight. And in geopolitics, you get into these complexities which we need to address, and we take it on a priority basis, and that is very much under discussion now, not after the incident, much before.
Okay. So you were already working on that. Let me look at some of the political statements that have come up. The first one that I would want to refer to is Mr. Praful Patel, former civil aviation minister, who has brought in the angle of Singapore Airlines which has a 25.1% stake in Air India. It's a shareholder, and Praful Patel has stated that it maintains a large number of Air India's widebody aircraft. They have been silent so far. This is what Mr. Praful Patel said early today on his social media account. Since then, they've put out a statement, Singapore Airlines, that they have been in touch. I want to ask you, were one of the engines serviced by Singapore Airlines and their engineering division, and why have they been silent so far till Mr. Patel's tweet?
See, I can tell you Singapore Airlines have been a great partner, and since we took over, they have helped us in many dimensions. Even some of the safety procedures, the best two processes we have taken from Singapore Airlines, we have taken it from Vistara. Many of the processes where we needed best-in-class benchmarks, they have helped us, and they have reached out. Even at this time, their CEO is in constant touch with me, and whether it is in customer experience or any other process, they are always available. They are very much in touch with us, and I wouldn't say anything negative. If I have to say anything about Singapore Airlines, they have been working with us closely and they've been offering all the help they can.
But Mr. Praful Patel is somebody who has seen your tie-up with Singapore Airlines when you were Vistara, and then of course Air India is something he's looked at very closely. His comment on the silence of Singapore Airlines and the fact that your CEO of Air India is actually a nominee of Singapore Airlines does raise a few questions.
No, CEO is not a nominee of Singapore Airlines. In fact, when the CEO was hired by me, he had to quit Singapore Airlines and join Air India as an employee. At that time, Singapore Airlines did not have a stake. We owned 100% of Air India. Then when the Vistara merger happened with Singapore Airlines into Air India, then Singapore Airlines got their 25% stake. So he's not a nominee of Singapore Airlines.
But the question on the silence still remains. The silence of who? Singapore Airlines, as stated by a man who knows.
See, I don't know what he refers to by being silent. If he's referring to Singapore Airlines not putting out a press release or making a statement, I don't have any comment on that. But if you ask me whether Singapore Airlines have been a good partner, a good partner, have they approached us? Are they offering us help? Answer is absolutely yes. Let me also pick up a statement that was put out by member of parliament Supriya Sule. The other thing I want to also say is that the 787s were also bought by Air India in 2013, and I think Minister Patel was there at that time. I don't know when he was the minister, but these are things that happened 10 years ago, 13 years ago.
Yeah. When government-owned Air India ordered the Dreamliners, correct?
So, is there a question to Mr. Patel? No, I'm not asking any question. I just got this tweet today. I didn't know what he was trying to say. I know him well, but I don't know what he meant. The only point I want to make is that there is nothing wrong with Singapore Airlines as a partner, and they have been good partners over the last 3 years. And with respect to the Boeing 787 aircraft, they've been there for a long time.
Let me also ask about Supriya Sule, who tweeted traveling from Delhi to Pune on Air India flight AI2971. The flight is delayed by over 3 hours. No clear communication, no updates, no assistance, and very bad service. She said such delays and mismanagement are becoming a norm with Air India.
Yeah, I saw the tweet immediately. I wanted to speak to her. In fact, I tried to get my office to get her, but I was in the flight. I was traveling. So I told our RND team to immediately speak to her. What my team told me is that they were trying to get her on the earlier flight 550, but they couldn't contact her assistant or whatever. Then the weather conditions in Delhi were bad. So your team couldn't get in touch with the assistant. They were the protocol. Then they were also delayed because of the weather in Delhi. I asked the team to speak to her, and I think she acknowledged. The only feedback my team told me is that she was very understanding, but the only thing she said is, 'Why can't you announce things properly?' And she gave some very constructive good feedback. But the problem is, whatever delay happened, a delay happened.
Rajiv Shukla also mentioned the recent spate of cancellations and delays of numerous Air India flights due to technical issues is deeply concerning. It's the same. It was a broken seat for the agriculture minister one day. It is the same thing. All these things, if you had communicated better, if you had proactively said these flights are going to be cancelled, every day 24 hours in advance we say these flights are going to be cancelled, then the problem could have been affected. That's what we went through in the last six days. So is the Air India team overwhelmed or is it generally bad communication?
I think these six days they are very overwhelmed. They overwhelmed these six days. I think they are after the 12th now managing everything, but this communications and all that, because this airspace also got closed. So one thing after another. But I think this statement today will help, and going forward they will have a process to announce everything every 24 hours at once.
Mr. Chandrasekaran, on the day of the crash, or maybe in a few hours of the crash, you also sent an open letter to your employees and you said this is probably the worst phase that the Tata group is going through. Why do you call it the worst phase? 26/11 happened.
Between the two man-made tragedies, I don't know in this case what is, I can't even call it man-made till the investigation is done, but which was worse, is there a way one can describe? I don't think there is any need to compare. I was there in Bombay when 26/11 happened. Normally, when I was in TCS, I would be meeting somebody in chambers on most days. It so happened that day I was not there. I just drove past Taj around 9:30. I reached home. As I entered my home, my wife screamed watching television. So we kind of saw what was happening live. So I know what happened in 26/11. That was very gruesome, and this is of a different level, different type of accident where we still don't know the reason. It is not a terrorist attack, and I hope it is not one of the things you referred to as sabotage. But I think the most sensible thing to do is for everybody to wait for the investigation, and we need a very transparent communication of the findings. Everyone needs to know. I need to know. You need to know. Families need to know whenever it's done.
I think they will give a preliminary finding in 30 days. After that, I don't know when the final finding will be. I have not been through this like you. I am as ignorant, if you will, or like anyone else. I have not gone through an airline crash or accident of a major magnitude where the Tata group over 150 years has seen many crises, seen two world wars, seen 26/11. This is another accident of a gigantic proportion. The magnitude, the scale at which it has happened, the number of innocent people, not only the passengers, the bystanders, those young students in the college hospital. It affected me personally a lot because in Pelgong, I don't know if you heard the story of a man getting shot with his wife. This person is a TCSer from Florida. He was traveling for a vacation after a few years, came to Kolkata. The first thing he did was to go for a vacation. So it's one of your own. It's not a good feeling. But everybody needs closure. Yes, we need to know what happened. The closure will come only if we know what happened.
And there are some people on that flight who chose, there were options of other flights, but they chose to fly with Air India. What would you want to say to them today?
As I said before, nothing I can say that can be a consolation. I can only say I am with all of you. The Tata group is with all of them. Every Tata person feels for them. The number of messages I have received from not only CEOs of Tata companies, many people across the Tata group sending me mails every day, sending me messages, 'Sir, if there is anything that we can do, we want to be part of this.' Not that if there is anything we can do, we want to help you, we want to be part of this. And not only people, the business community has been great. So many people, everyone feels for this. Something about India in situations like this, we come together.
Yes. There is a strange story. Two of your crew members, one a cook, one a matey. And you know, confrontations in Manipur. Hopefully bringing them together. Maybe.
But for 30 days, no closure, no accountability. Everything waits for 30 days. Could it be?
We can't jump to any other conclusion.
Who's accountable? We need to wait further investigation until we know the truth. Who do you hold accountable?
One expression that has come out is that nobody was there when the cremation of Captain Sabharwal was happening or some of the other crew members, employees, other people. That's not true. Navika, we discussed it at length the day before, and who should be going for the rights. The chief operating officer of Air India was there. Our head of Tata group CHR was there, and few more people were there from Tata Sons at different levels. A lot of Air India people were there. And we as a group will do multiple things. It is not about just being visible in one location. There will be a senior person who will be there in all the locations, whether it is our crew member or non-crew member. That is why we have created this whole organization. Some will be in Bombay, some will be in Gujarat, some will be in other parts of India. But I don't want to say it for any publicity, but we will definitely visit all the families. All the top people among ourselves will visit all the families, and we have a method of doing that, and it is not for any big statement. So let's not make it a 'we care, we don't care'. Caring doesn't mean doing one thing. Caring is much deeper. So I have also seen those tweets. I think it's best left there.
And to those families who have lost their loved ones, what would your message be today?
I would only say that we are grieving alongside you, and we want to be with you, and we want to support you in every which way possible and you desire. And we hope we can be with you, and you can be part of the Tata family for life. For that, we need to create the system as I told you, and we'll work on it.
On that note, Mr. Chandrasekaran, very despondent times. We do hope the cloud lifts and we know the truth. As you said, only the truth now will have the power to actually give us closure. In the meanwhile, from each of the 25 crore viewer family that we have in the Times Network, we would say that we are with those families. Sorry we can't bring back their loved ones, but maybe some of the questions and the answers that you've given will give them closure.
The Tata group over the last... I was in an internal meeting when I first heard the news. It was quite shocking and something that is incomprehensible. Suddenly you heard, and it took me a few seconds to gather myself, and then immediately I rushed to the airport to fly to Ahmedabad.
How did you hear about it? Was it a colleague?
It was a call I got from someone. 'Hey Chandra, what is happening?' Then immediately I went out and my assistant was there. She switched on the TV, but I didn't wait for anything and immediately I rushed.
And what were your first thoughts? Did you get the information on what were the casualties like, what had happened, or was it just instinctive that you ran?
I knew immediately I have to go to Ahmedabad. So I asked the office to immediately arrange the flight. I will go to the airport. Then I started making calls as I was leaving office, sitting in the car, going to the airport. I was making calls to Air India, making calls to our people in Gujarat, our manager in Gujarat. There are many Tata companies. So getting information piece by piece. By the time I reached the airport and was getting into the flight, I knew the enormity. I was also watching online and taking calls and trying to assemble people. It was a very difficult situation. I was trying to think what should I be doing immediately. The thought came to me that immediately we need a response team on the ground, and we need to have people. I didn't know how many Air India people will be there, so my thought was while I called Air India people, I also called all our Tata colleagues. You're dealing with it, people are calling you at the same time because people want to know more. People think that I would know more, but I was actually like anyone else. So that's what happened.
Did you initially hope that there would be some survivors, or did you from the word go know that it was a bad crash?
No, no, I was like everyone else, hoping that people will survive. You were praying like everyone else. 'God, what is happening?' Somehow you hoped that people will survive because you have not seen the site. You are only hearing stories. So I was only hoping that the image will be there but people will survive, or how many will survive. These were thoughts that were going through my mind.
But there is anger amongst the families. They are demanding answers. Many people are totally taken aback. You must have read these stories too. There was the Johi family. The father was settled in London in the UK, was coming back to pick up the wife and their three children. Those pictures have been there across social media, across various media, and the entire family was wiped out. Then there is the case of Arjun Manjhi Palia, who came to just give his wife's ashes away. She had died earlier. He left his two daughters, 8 and 12, back in London only to do the last rites of his wife, and now his children are orphaned. What would you say to them today?
I think it is the most horrific story that you can ever hear. It is such a heart-wrenching situation. It's very difficult to console anyone who has lost a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a son. It is very difficult to console. Whatever you may say, it cannot be sufficient enough to console them from this loss. So all I can say is that I grieve with them as much as they do. And when I say this, I mean it for me and all my Tata colleagues. We just want to consider them as part of the Tata family for life. But there is no life. They have gone. But the families that live today, we just have to be with them. All we can promise is we will be with them, and I will be with them. But it's very hard to console because you can't get the life back.
How would you be with them? In helping them in every which way now and in the future. Those two young girls, 8 years old and 12 years old, what are they going to do without their parents, and how will the Tata group be with them?
There are structures we want to put in place. One of the things that we have been thinking is to create, say, an AI171 trust, which will be available to them to look after. But there are many things, not only the financial need, there may be other needs. So we've got to think through and then create the trust and other functioning infrastructure so that we can be with these families. Some will not need any help. Some will need some kind of help. Some will need emotional help. We don't know. We will have to find this out. But the point is, it could happen to one of us. It is very hard to explain what these people will be going through, and it's very hard for us to console.
What would you want to say to them today?
It is an extremely difficult situation where I have no words to express to console any one of them. I just deeply regret that this whole accident happened in a Tata airline, and I feel very sorry. And all we can do is to be with them at this time. We grieve with them and we do everything we can.
Have you spoken to any of these families?
I only so far met the lone survivor, and now we plan to visit as many families as possible. Myself and my colleagues, we intend to visit all the families. But currently, our job is to help the families to come to Ahmedabad, collect the remains, and provide them some brief counseling, and then all the way to the final rites. Currently that is what we are doing. We have one Tata colleague as an angel deployed to work with each family, and there are 400 Tata people across companies in Ahmedabad. What we're trying to do is to be with each of these families in the next few days, get through this stage. Then we need to meet them, we need to support them, we need to see what we can do and what we need to do.
Mr. Chandrasekaran, on the first day there was a statement where you said you need a transparent investigation into what happened. I want to ask you, where have you reached with that probe? Because there would be one Tata investigation apart from the other investigations. So what have you found so far?
See, this is a crisis or a tragedy of a gigantic proportion. It has affected everybody. Yes, the families are affected, but the whole country is affected in a manner of speaking. There is a lot of fear. There is a lot of anger. I can understand that. Personally, I have also traveled a lot in my life. I used to travel 200 days internationally a year for 20 years, and I have faced flight diversions, flight cancellations, all kinds of issues. Every time one small thing happens, you get affected. And this, I can understand what is the level of fear that would have set in. So everyone wants to know what happened. I can tell you, I also want to know the same. Unless or otherwise we know what happened, there is no hope to fix it so that it doesn't happen again. If we know what has happened, then there is a chance to fix it so that it doesn't happen again. But we have to go through the process. Airline systems are quite complex, and airlines have been built with a lot of redundancy. If such redundancies are not there, these kinds of incidents can happen very often. So the fact that these are rarity is because such systems are there. But still this occurred. So unless we wait for the investigation, we can get into a lot of speculations. There are speculations about human error, speculation about airlines, speculation about engines, maintenance, all kinds. There are a lot of speculations and a lot of theories. But the facts that I know so far: this particular aircraft, AI171, that particular tail, has a clean history. Clean history, clean history. And the two engines: both engines, right engine was a new engine put in March 2025, the left engine was last serviced in 2023 and due for next maintenance check in 2025 December. Both the engine histories are clean. When I saw that, I couldn't find anything with the team. Both the pilots are exceptional pilots. Captain Sabharwal has more than 11,400 hours of flying experience, and the first officer Clinton has more than 3,400 hours of flying experience. What I hear from our colleagues is they were excellent pilots and great professionals. So we can't jump to any conclusions. There are a lot of theories, and you see them on YouTube, you see them in media channels, you see them on other channels, and a lot of experts. So all I would say is that unless we wait for the investigations to come through, and I am told by all the experts that the black box and the recorders will definitely tell the story. So we just have to wait for that, and before that it's very important not to jump into any conclusion.
So if you're saying everything was perfect, the engines, one was new, one was due for servicing only by the end of the year, then what went wrong? There are two questions that are being speculated on. There are only 2% of air crashes worldwide where the crash happens in the ascending period of the aircraft. Only 2%. And this AI171 was one of those flights where while taking off the crash happened with such low data in terms of percentage probability. What happened?
See Navika, as I said, I am not an expert to be able to decipher this. All I know is the facts, the records that I have seen. I am not to say this is ruled out, that is ruled out.
The Tata group and you said you would have a separate investigation?
No, we can't do any separate investigation. All the records will be with the DGCA, and the DGCA has set up those commissions and they will do the investigation. There is no independent investigation possible. So no preliminary probe by Air India itself internally. There is nothing we can do. We can only see our records. Were there any red flags? Were there any maintenance red flags that had been put out by DGCA? We understand two show cause notices. I have seen this record for these aircraft, the engines, and the pilot record. I sat with the team, discussed this, and I didn't see any red flags, nor did they highlight any red flags.
But DGCA has fined you in the recent past over the last maybe year or so, where there have been several fines that have been put on Air India for different kinds of red flags and maintenance issues. I can read out to you these. The DGCA put a 30 lakh fine because Air India and Air India Express did not meet operational robustness, maintenance-related delays. There have been different kinds of fines. So one now, the point I'm making is that what I am giving you the information is very specific to this tail number and these engines and this pilot and this incident. And any safety-related issues, we take it very seriously.
See, there are two things in the airline. One is very core which is safety, and there are other things that you have to do. All I would say is that anything safety-related, the first thing is to cover. There are many maintenance issues that are still there. Some IFEs don't work, some seats don't function. Those are customer experience issues. We are trying to sort them out. They are different from safety issues. Anything that is a safety issue, there is no way DGCA would allow us to fly. With respect to this specific aircraft, what I have seen is what I have told you. But this is not to say anything more extra because we need to wait for the investigation.
There are some reports that say that June 3rd and June 5th there were two show cause notices from the DGCA.
See, anything other than this particular aircraft, we can talk about it separately. But all I'm giving you data is only with respect to this incident, this aircraft, these engines, and these pilots.
I want to ask you, the Turkish Technic maintaining Air India fleets has been raised as an issue that could probably be the cause in this case. How would you respond to that speculation?
None of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft, we have 33 of them, none of them are maintained by Technic. Predominantly most of them are maintained in India by AESL or SIA Engineering, that is the engineering company AESL and SIA Engineering Company in Singapore. These are the guys who are maintaining these aircraft. They have nothing to do with any Turkish company for the 787 fleet.
For the 787s, you have almost 33 787s in your fleet. The Dreamliners are suddenly the bad boys in the fleet. There have been whistleblowers in the past who have raised many questions about the safety norms followed by Dreamliners. At any stage, have your people raised safety concerns on the Dreamliners to you?
Practically speaking, there has never been a safety concern raised because Dreamliners have been operating globally for a very long time from I think 2008 or 2009. Air India also procured them much before we bought Air India. We had 27 Dreamliners when we bought Air India, and then we got additional six through Vistara. So Dreamliner specific complaint we have not received. While we have ordered a large number of A350s, we have also got options to buy 787s. There has never been a specific concern on the 787.
But all these videos are also surfacing and they are doing a lot of viewing at this point in time. But you must be aware of the fact that this is not something that is surfacing now. The United States, the FAA is investigating into some of these charges that have been made by former staff of Boeing. I want to ask you, the Federal Aviation Administration is looking at some of the exposes made by Sam Salehpour, and there has been John Barnett who raised some concerns. They've said that these concerns did exist in the Boeing aircraft.
These are things that are being dealt with by the investigation agencies in the US. But overall, 787s have been flying for a very long time, and Air India has been flying 787 for a long time.
So then let me ask you, you said, and I completely bring to you the viewer feedback, the customers out there who use your airline every day for commuting. They are at the end of their tether because there have been 13 Dreamliner flights that have been grounded between the 12th of June and today. 6 days, 66 flights that have been cancelled, and it is spreading nervousness of the kind that has never been experienced before. Forget the flying experience. Just the fact that flights are getting cancelled, information is not coming in, the fear factor has taken over at airports. There is literally a riot out there. How do you explain this?
Navika, let me give you a full breakdown. First, I would like to say that there are more than 1,100 flights that we fly every day. In the last 6 days, there have been in general anywhere from 5 to 16 or 18 flights depending on the day that have been cancelled. First, you need that number. Second, what has happened in this period of 6 days? There are three things at work. The first thing is we have had to go through the DGCA checks. The moment the accident happened on the 12th, DGCA has mandated additional checks to be done on all the 787s. So we have had to ground many 787s, and as a result we are short of aircraft and we had to cancel those flights. That is one cause. Out of the 33, about 24 have gone through the checks and the remaining are going through. It is taking time but it will get through. The second reason is also this whole airspace has got closed, Iran and the whole thing happening in the Middle East. So as a result, flights have to be diverted. When flights are diverted, many other flights get cancelled. These two have a knock-on effect because if the flight doesn't arrive in time, that flight cannot take off, and when that cannot take off we have to cancel it because there is no aircraft. The third is technical issues. When we take off and land at any destination, we will be doing land checks, and every now and then it is common for the land checks to find some spare part to be changed or something to be changed. Not in every flight, but it does happen. So because of that, there may be delays. If the spare part is there, immediately they change and take off. If the spare part is going to take time and even if it comes and they fix it, they may lose the slot for taking off or arriving landing because airports close at 10:00 some places. So these are the three things that have caused. It is not all our technical errors. But I agree with you, Air India could have been very proactive in terms of every day saying if they are cancelling, why are they cancelling? In these six days, normally if they had not communicated, it wouldn't create so much fear, but because of what happened on June 12th, anytime there is a delay or diversion or cancellation, even if I was traveling I would be afraid. That is what has happened. So we are doing a better job of communication. We have not been good at it. You are admitting that communication hasn't been very strong. Absolutely. And what are the corrective measures that you are undertaking? So we have set up a communication team on top of what we have. In Air India, there is a regular comms team, and we have put a strategic communication team in place in the last 3 days. Today we have put out the first comprehensive media statement explaining all this, what happened on June 12th and subsequently why there have been so many cancellations. When you say and give them this number, this is the total number of flights, we take this, the cancellations and why these cancellations have happened. Then we have taken an additional step because we are going to feel this kind of disruption for some more time. Our checks will be there, also the airspace closure will be there. So we have decided to reduce the number of aircraft which are flying so that we can have a lot of buffer aircraft. You're doubling more than doubling the buffer aircraft both in the widebody and the narrowbody, 787s, 320s, and the trip 7s. We're creating more buffer, and that statement would have been issued by now.
My question to you is also about the fact that Boeing has had a series of bad press, if you want to call it that, but several questions that have been following them in recent times. In fact, after the crash, there has been a meeting between you and the Boeing head visiting India. I want to understand from you what was this meeting all about? Safety aspects of Boeing, are they a concern, and what is it that has been a red flag to Boeing in terms of the hardware, the aircraft themselves?
So I did connect with both Boeing and GE at the highest levels. To be frank, their top team from both the companies traveled and met with us. What I have asked both of them in parallel to the DGCA checks that we have gone through, I have asked them to check and tell us if any issues are there in any of the aircraft or engines.
What were your conversations with Stephanie Pope? Because many people are today talking about the spate of technical snags, in quotes, that have hit Air India in the recent week. Are these technical snags because of design issues or are they regular stuff that often crop up?
See, as I said, the numbers that you have said comprise multiple groupings. Some are very deliberate grounding of planes because we had to go through the DGCA checks. Then a certain number had to be cancelled primarily because of this airspace closure and diversions and disruptions due to that and the knock-on effect. Then there is a third category. Since we have not explained all of this, every cancellation has been reported in the media, and I don't blame the media. I totally hold our Air India team to account that we have to do a better job of communication since that was not done. Everything is reported as a technical snag. But none of these technical snags are of the nature that the aircraft cannot fly. It is some part missing, something missing so far. And this is not to say that I will not see something else in the future. So at this point in time, this is the status. We have to give a very strong communication on a daily basis, at least for the time being, till such time the confidence is restored.
But Mr. Chandrasekaran, I want to ask you, you're talking about communication to the media. I'm talking about real communication to the customers waiting at airports. The communication link there is probably the weakest ever at this point in time, which is why you have frayed tempers, you have agitated families, you have people expecting family coming from different locations internationally. And for most people, India doesn't begin when they land in India. India begins when they get into an Air India flight that has a destination in India. What happens to that brand name, that complete faith in the brand area?
Faith in the brand area? See, I can say that in each one of these areas, whether it is communication at the gate or communication at the counters or every aspect, there has been a vast improvement but it is not where it should be. Still there is a lot of gap. So we are on a transformation journey. We have done about three years and in these three years we have had to work on every dimension, whether it is in the fleet dimension, whether it is in engineering, whether it is maintenance, whether it is safety, whether it is customer service, technology. We made progress in all dimensions but nowhere we should be. We are where we should be and we know we can get there but it is taking time.
Let me ask you, Mr. Campell, the CEO of Air India, insensitivity, I don't know, to the power infinity with his statement coming in on 13th of June which is a plagiarized statement. Now that is not something that we or anybody in India expects from Tata Group. Mr. Campell's statement has been a complete copy-paste of a statement made after a crash in January in the United States of America. How can something like this pass the muster of the Tata group?
I think there are a couple of answers here. The first one is currently the focus is about five six days now. Our focus currently is on addressing the needs of all those affected and also get stability. Get the stability. The second point I want to make is I think we can split hairs over the words but I think if you look into the spirit of what has been said, I think we should take it at this moment on what is the matter that he conveyed and then start to address issues and let investigations get done. But templated statements, almost AI generated, is that what people desire? See, I have not heard about this. I have not analyzed it word by word but this is something we look into.
You look into it. Let me also ask you, there have been issues that have been raised even in the past ever since Operation Sindur about maintenance jobs being done by the Turkish Technic company. I want to ask you, will this, you said it's not Dreamliners that it impacts, are there other planes that are maintained by them and how are we going to address that issue?
See, there are maintenance agencies. There are many of them in different parts of the world. And these contracts have been set up long-term or for a period of time. And as I said, most all the 787s are between three or four agencies, none of which is the Turkish airline or Technic. We have some maintenance of the trip 7s with them. But all these contracts, where we will do, which agency we will do, all those things are being looked at on a priority basis because these cannot be changed overnight. And in geopolitics you get into these complexities which we need to address and we take it on a priority basis and that is very much under discussion now, not after the incident, much before.
Okay. So you were already working on that. Let me look at some of the political statements that have come up. The first one that I would want to refer to is Mr. Praful Patel, former civil aviation minister, who has brought in the angle of Singapore Airlines which has a 25.1% stake in Air India. It's a shareholder and Praful Patel has stated that it maintains a large number of Air India's widebody aircraft. They have been silent so far. This is what Mr. Praful Patel said early today on his social media account. Since then they've put out a statement, Singapore Airlines, that they have been in touch. I want to ask you, were one of the engines serviced by Singapore Airlines and their engineering division and why have they been silent so far till Mr. Patel's tweet?
See, I can tell you, Singapore Airlines have been a great partner and since we took over, they have helped us in many dimensions. Even some of the safety procedures, the best two processes we have taken from Singapore Airlines, we have taken it from Vistara and many of the processes where we needed best-in-class benchmarks, they have helped us and they have reached out. Even at this time, their CEO is in constant touch with me and whether it is in customer experience and any other process, they are always available and very much they are in touch with us. I wouldn't say anything negative. If I have to say anything about Singapore Airlines, they have been working with us closely and they have been offering all the help they can.
But Mr. Praful Patel is somebody who has seen your tie-up with Singapore Airlines when you were Vistara and then of course Air India is something he's looked at very closely. His comment on the silence of Singapore Airlines and the fact that your CEO of Air India is actually a nominee of Singapore Airlines does raise a few questions.
No, CEO is not a nominee of Singapore Airlines. In fact, when the CEO was hired by me, he had to quit Singapore Airlines and join Air India as an employee. And at that time Singapore Airlines did not have a stake. We owned 100% of Air India. And then when the Vistara merger happened with Singapore Airlines with Air India, then Singapore Airlines got their 25% stake. So he is not a nominee of Singapore Airlines.
But the question on the silence still remains. The silence of who? Singapore Airlines. As stated by a man who knows.
See, I don't know what he refers to by being silent. If he's referring to Singapore Airlines not putting out a press release or making a statement, I don't have any comment on that. But if you ask me whether Singapore Airlines have been a good partner, a good partner, have they approached us? Are they offering us help? Answer is absolutely yes.
Let me also pick up a statement that was put out by member of parliament Supriya Sule. And the other thing I want to also say is that the 787s were also bought by Air India in 2013 and I think minister Patil was there at that time. I don't know when he was the minister. But these are things that happened 10 years ago, 13 years ago. Yeah. When government owned Air India ordered the Dreamliners, correct? So is there a question to Mr. Praful? No, I'm not asking any question. I just got this tweet today. Then I said I didn't know what he was trying to say. I know him well. But I don't know what he meant. The only point I want to make is that there is nothing wrong with Singapore Airlines as a partner and they have been good partners over the last 3 years and with respect to the Boeing 787 aircraft, they've been there for a long time.
Let me also ask about Supriya Sule who tweeted traveling from Delhi to Pune on Air India flight AI2971. The flight is delayed by over 3 hours. No clear communication, no updates, no assistance and very bad service. Such delays and mismanagement are becoming a norm with Air India. She said, 'Yeah, I saw the tweet immediately. I wanted to speak to her. In fact, I tried to get my office to get her but I was in the flight. I was traveling. So I told our Air India team to immediately speak to her. And what my team told me is that they were trying to get her on the earlier flight 550 flight but they couldn't contact her assistant or whatever. Then the weather conditions in Delhi was bad. So your team couldn't get in touch with assistant. They were the protocol. Then they were also delayed because of the weather in Delhi. So I asked the team to speak to her and I think she acknowledged. And then the only thing I think the feedback my team told me is that she was very understanding but the only thing she said is that why can't you announce things properly and she gave some very constructive good feedback. But the problem is whatever delay happened. Rajiv Shukla also recent spate of cancellations and delays of numerous Air India flights due to technical issues is deeply concerning. It's the same. It was a broken seat for the agriculture minister one day. It is the same thing. All these things are if you had communicated better, if you had proactively said these flights are going to be cancelled every day 24 hours in advance, we say these flights are going to be cancelled then the problem could have been affected. That's what we went through in the last six days. So is the Air India team overwhelmed or is it generally bad communication?
I think these six days they are very overwhelmed. They are overwhelmed these six days. I think after the 12th now they are managing everything but this communications and all that because this airspace also got closed. So one thing after another. But I think this statement today will help and going forward they will have a process to announce everything every 24 hours at once.
Mr. Chandrasekaran, on the day of the crash or maybe in a few hours of the crash, you also sent an open letter to your employees and you said this is probably the worst phase that the Tata group is going through. Why do you call it the worst phase? 26/11 happened.
I of course between the two tragedies, man-made tragedies, I don't know in this case what is, I can't even call it man-made till the investigation is done. But which was worse, is there a way one can describe? I don't think there is any need to compare. I was there in Bombay when the 26/11 happened and normally when I was in TCS, usually I'll be meeting somebody in chambers on most of the days. It so happened that that day I was not there. I just drove past Taj around 9:30. I reached home as I entered my home, my wife screamed watching television so we kind of saw what was happening live. So I know what happened in 26/11. That was very gruesome. And this is of a different level, different type of accident where we still don't know the reason. It is not a terrorist attack and I hope it is not one of the things that you referred to as sabotage. But I think the... Is there a possibility? No, no, I mean you said it. I didn't say it. I basically say I don't want to go through and pick anything. I sincerely believe that the most sensible thing to do is for everybody to wait for investigation and we need a very transparent communication of the findings. Everyone needs to know. I need to know, you need to know, families need to know whenever it's done. When do you think? I think they will give a preliminary finding in 30 days. After that I don't know when the final finding will be. And see, I have not been through this like you, as ignorant if you will or like anyone else. I've not gone through an airline crash or accident of a major magnitude where the Tata group over the 150 years has seen many crises, seen two World Wars, seen the 26/11. It is another accident of a gigantic proportion. And to my mind, the magnitude, the scale at which it has happened, the number of innocent people, not only the passengers, the bystanders, those young students in the college hospital. And for me it affected me personally a lot because in Pelgong, I don't know whether you heard about the story of a man getting shot with a wife and so this person is a TCSer from Florida and then he was traveling for a vacation after a few years. Came to Kolkata, the first thing he did is to go for a vacation. Okay. So, one of your own. So, it's not a good feeling. Yeah. From Pelgam to... But everybody needs closure. Everybody needs closure. Yes. That's why we need to know what happened. The closure will come only if it is what happened.
And there are some people on that flight who chose, there were options of other flights but they chose to fly with Air India. What would you want to say to them today?
As I said before, nothing I can say that can be a consolation. I can only say I am with all of you. The Tata group is with all of them. Every Tata person feels for them. The number of messages I have received from not only CEOs of Tata companies, many people across the Tata group sending me mails every day, sending me messages. Sir, if there is anything that we can do, we want to be part of this. Not that if there is anything that we can do, we want to help you. We want to be part of this. And not only a lot of people, I tell you the business community has been great. So many people, everyone feels for this. I think something about India in situations like this we come together. Yes. There is a strange story. Two of your crew members, one a cookie, one a matey, and you know... Yes. Yes. Yeah. I heard about that. Confrontations in Manipur. Hopefully bring them together. Maybe. But for 30 days no closure, no accountability. Everything waits for 30 days. Would it be we can't jump to any other conclusion? Who's accountable? We need to wait further investigation until you know the truth. Who do you hold account? One expression that has come out is that nobody was there when the cremation of Captain Sabharwal was happening or some of the other crew members, employees, other people. That's not true. Navika, we discussed it at length on the day before and who should be going for the rights for Sabharwal. The chief operating officer of Air India was there. Our head of Tata group CHR was there and few more people were there from Tata Sons at different levels. A lot of Air India people were there and we as a group will do multiple things. It is not about just being visible in one location. There will be a senior person who will be there in all the locations whether it is our crew member or non-crew member. That is why we have created this whole organization. Some will be in Bombay, some will be in Gujarat, some will be in other parts of India. But I don't want to say it for any publicity but we will definitely visit all the families. All the top people among ourselves visit all the families and we have a method of doing that and it is not for any big statement. So I think let's not make it a we care, we don't care. I mean caring doesn't mean doing one thing. Caring is much deeper. And so I have also seen those tweets. I think it's best left there.
And to those families who have lost their loved ones, what would your message be today?
I would only say that we are grieving alongside you and we want to be with you and we want to support you in every which way possible and you desire. And we hope we can be with you and you can be part of the Tata family for life and for that we need to create the system as I told you and we'll work on it.
On that note, Mr. Chandrasekaran, very despondent times. We do hope the cloud lifts and we know the truth. As you said, only the truth now will have the power to actually give us closure. In the meanwhile, from each of the 25 crore viewer family that we have in the Times network, we would say that we are with those families. Sorry we can't bring back their loved ones but maybe some of the questions and the answers that you've given will give them closure. See, the Tata group over the last I was in an internal meeting when I first heard the news. It was quite shocking and something that is incomprehensible that suddenly you heard and it took me a few seconds to gather myself and then immediately I rushed to the airport to fly to Ahmedabad. How did you hear about it? Was it a colleague? It is a call that I got from someone. Hey Chandra, what is happening? Then immediately I went out and my assistant was there. She switched on the TV but I didn't wait for anything and immediately I rushed. And what were your first thoughts? Did you get the information on what were the casualties like what had happened or was it just instinctive that you ran? I knew immediately I have to go to Ahmedabad. So I asked the office to immediately arrange the flight. I will go to the airport and then I started making calls as I was leaving office sitting in the car and going to the airport. I was making calls to Air India, making calls to our people in Gujarat, our manager in Gujarat. There are many Tata companies and so getting information piece by piece and by the time I reached the airport and was getting into the flight, I knew the enormity and I was also watching online and taking calls and trying to assemble people. It was a very difficult situation. So I was trying to think what should I be doing. Immediately the thought came to me that immediately what we need is a response team on the ground and we need to have people. I didn't know how many Air India people will be there. So my thought was while I called Air India people, I also called all our Tata colleagues. And you know, you're dealing with it, people are calling you at the same time because people want to know more. People think that I would know more but I was actually like anyone else. So that's what happened. Did you initially hope that there would be some survivors or did you from the word go know that it was a bad crash? No. I was like everyone else was hoping that people will survive. You were praying like everyone else. God, what is happening? And somehow you hoped that people will survive because you have not seen the site. You are only hearing stories. So I was only hoping that damage will be there but people will survive or how many will survive. These were thoughts that were going through my mind.
But there is anger amongst the families. They are demanding answers. Many people are totally taken aback. If I just, you must have read these stories too. There was the Johi family. The father was settled in London in UK, was coming back to pick up the wife and their three children. Those pictures have been there across social media, across various media and the entire family was wiped out. Then there is the case of Arjun Manuhai Poleia who came to just give his wife's ashes away. She had died earlier. He'd left his two daughters, 8 and 12, back in London only to do the last rites of his wife and now his children are orphaned. What would you say to them today, these people?
I think it is the most horrific story that you can ever hear. It is such a heart-wrenching situation. It's very difficult to console anyone who has lost a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a son. It is very difficult to console. Whatever you may say, it cannot be sufficient enough to console them from this loss. So all I can say is that I grieve with them as much as they do. And when I say this, I mean it for me and all my Tata colleagues. We just want to consider them as part of the Tata family for life. But there is no life. They have gone. But the families that they live today, we just have to be with them. All we can promise is we will be with them and I will be with them. But it's very hard to console because you can't get the life back. How would you be with them? In helping them in every which way now and in the future. Those two young girls, 8 years old and 12 year old, what are they going to do without their parents and how will the Tata group be with them? So there are structures we want to put in place. One of the things that we have been thinking is to create, say for example, an AI171 trust and then which will be available to them to look after. But there are many things, it's not only the financial need, there may be other needs. So we've got to think through and then create the trust and other functioning infrastructure so that we can be with these families. Some will not need any help. Some will need some kind of help. Some will need emotional help. We don't know. We have to find this out. But the point is it could happen to one of us. It is very hard to explain what these people will be going through and it's very hard for us to console. What would you want to say to them today? It is an extremely difficult situation where I have no words to express to console any one of them. I just deeply regret that this whole accident happened in a Tata airline and I feel very sorry and all we can do is to be with them at this time. We grieve with them and we do everything we can.
Have you spoken to any of these families?
I only so far met the lone survivor and now we plan to visit as many families as possible. Myself and between me and my colleagues, we intend to visit all the families. But now currently our job is to help the families to come to Ahmedabad, collect the remains and provide them some brief counseling and then all the way to the final rights. Currently that is what we are doing. We have one Tata colleague as an angel deployed to work with each family and there are 400 Tata people across companies in Ahmedabad. And what we're trying to do is to be with each of these families in the next few days to get through this stage. Then we need to meet them. We need to support them. We need to see what we can do and what we need to do.
Mr. Chandrasekaran, on the first day there was a statement where you said you need a transparent investigation into what happened. I want to ask you where have you reached with that probe because there would be one Tata investigation apart from the other investigations. So what have you found so far?
See, this is a crisis or a tragedy of a gigantic proportion. It has affected everybody. Yes, the families are affected but the whole country is affected in a manner of speaking. There is a lot of fear. There is a lot of anger. I can understand that. Personally, I have also traveled a lot in my life. I used to travel 200 days internationally a year for 20 years and I have faced flight diversions, flight cancellations, all kinds of issues and every time one small thing happens you get affected. And this I can understand what is the level of fear that would have set in. So everyone wants to know what happened and I can tell you I also want to know the same. Unless or otherwise we know what happened, there is no hope to fix it so that it doesn't happen again. If we know what has happened then there is a chance to fix it so that it doesn't happen again. But we have to go through the process. Airline systems are quite complex and airlines have been built with a lot of redundancy. If such redundancies are not there, these kind of incidents can happen very often. So the fact that these are rarity is because such systems are there. But still this occurred. So unless or otherwise we wait for the investigation, we can get into a lot of speculations. There are speculations about human error, speculation about airlines, speculation about engines, maintenance, all kinds. There are a lot of speculations and a lot of theories. But the fact that I know so far is this particular aircraft AI171, that particular tail, has a clean history. Clean history. And the two engines, both engines, right engine was a new engine put in March 2025, the left engine was last serviced in 2023 and due next maintenance check in 2025 December. And both the engine histories are clean. When I saw that I couldn't find anything with the team. Both the pilots are exceptional pilots and the captain Sabharwal has more than 11,400 hours of flying experience and the first officer Clive has more than 3,400 hours of flying experience. What I hear from our colleagues is they were excellent pilots and great professionals. So we can't jump to any conclusions and there are a lot of theories and you see them on YouTube, you see them in media channels, you see them on other channels and a lot of experts. So all I would say is that unless we wait for the investigations to come through and I am told by all the experts that the black box and the recorders will definitely tell the story, so we just have to wait for that and before that it's very important not to jump into any conclusion.
So if you're saying everything was perfect, the engines, one was new, one was due for servicing only by the end of the year, then what went wrong? There are two questions. There are two questions that are being speculated on. There are only 2% of air crashes worldwide where the crash happens in the ascending period of the aircraft. Only 2%. And this AI171 was one of those flights where while taking off the crash happened with such low data in terms of percentage probability. What happened?
See Navika, as I said I am not an expert to be able to decipher this. All I know is the facts, the records that I have seen. I'm not to say this is ruled out, that is ruled out. The Tata group and you would you said you would have... I have separate investigation? No, we can't do any separate investigation. All the records will be with the DGCA and the DGCA has set up those commissions and they will do the investigation. There is no independent investigation possible. So no preliminary probe by Air India itself internal. There is nothing we can do. We can only see our records. Were there any red flags? Were there any maintenance red flags that had been put out by DGCA? We understand two shots. I have seen this record for these aircrafts and the engines and the pilot record. I sat with the team, discussed this and I didn't see any red flags nor did they highlight any red flags.
But DGCA has fined you in the recent past over the last maybe year or so where there have been several fines that have been put on Air India for different kinds of red flags and maintenance issues. I can read out to you these. The DGCA put a 30 lakh fine because Air India and Air India Express did not meet operational robustness, maintenance related delays. There have been different kinds of fines. So now because the point I'm making is that what I am giving you the information is very specific to this tail number and these engines and this pilot and this incident. And any safety related issues we take it very seriously. See, there are two things in the airline. One is very core which is the safety and there are other things that you have to do. And all I would say is that anything safety related, the first thing out to cover and there are many things you yourself know, there are many makeup issues that are there still. There are some IFEs don't work, some seats don't function. Okay, those are customer experience issues. We are trying to sort them out. They are different from safety issues. Anything that safety issues is there, there is no way DGCA allows us to fly. And with respect to this specific aircraft, what I have seen is what I have told you. But this is not to say anything more extra because we need to wait for the investigation. There are some reports that say that June 3rd and June 5th there were two show cause notices from the DGCA. See, anything other than this particular aircraft we can talk about it separately. But all I'm giving you data is only with respect to this incident, this aircraft, these engines and these pilots.
I want to ask you, the Turkish Technic maintaining Air India fleets that has been raised as an issue that could probably be the cause in this case. How would you respond to that speculation?
None of these 787 Dreamliner aircraft, we have 33 of them, none of them are maintained by Technic. Predominantly most of them are maintained in India by AESL or SIA Engineering that is the engineering company AESL and SIA Engineering company in Singapore. So these are the guys who are maintaining these aircrafts. They have nothing to do with any Turkish company for the 787 fleet.
For the 787s, you have almost 33 787s in your fleet. The Dreamliners are suddenly the bad boys in the fleet. There have been whistleblowers in the past who have raised many questions about the safety norms followed by Dreamliners. At any stage have your people raised safety concerns on the Dreamliners to you?
See, practically speaking, there has never been a safety concern raised because Dreamliners have been operating globally for a very long time from I think 2008 or 2009 or something like that. And Air India also procured them much before we bought Air India. It had bought most of these. I think when we bought Air India itself we had 27 Dreamliners and then we got additional six through Vistara. So Dreamliner specific complaint we have not received. While we have ordered a large number in the new orders, we have made a lot of order on A350 but we have also got options to buy 787. But there has never been a specific concern on the 787. But all these videos are also surfacing and they are doing a lot of viewing at this point in time. But you must be aware of the fact that this is not only something that is surfacing now. The United States, the FAA is investigating into some of these charges that have been made by former staff of Boeing. I want to ask you the Federal Aviation Administration is looking at some of the exposes made by Sam Salehpour and then there has been John Barnett who's raised some concerns, now late John Barnett, and they've said that these concerns did exist in the Boeing aircraft. See, these are things that are being dealt with the investigation agencies in the US. But overall, 787s have been flying for a very long time and in Air India it has been flying 787 for a long time.
So then let me ask you, you said and I completely bring to you the viewer feedback, you know the customers out there who use your airline every day for commuting. They are at the end of their tether because there have been 13 Dreamliner flights that have been grounded between the 12th of June and today. 6 days, 66 flights that have been cancelled and it is spreading nervousness of the kind that has never been experienced before. Forget the flying experience. Just the fact that flights are getting cancelled, information is not coming in, the fear factor has taken over at airports. There is literally a riot out there. How do you explain this?
See, let me give you a full breakdown. First I would like to say that there are more than 1100 flights that we fly every day and in the last 6 days there have been in general anywhere from 5 to 16 or 18 flights depending on the day that have been cancelled. Okay, first you need that number. Second, what has happened in this period of 6 days? There are three things at work. The first thing is we have had to go through the DGCA checks. The moment the accident happened on the 12th, DGCA has mandated additional checks to be done on all the 787s. So we have had to ground many 787s and as a result we are short of aircrafts and we had to cancel those flights. That is one cause. How many of the 24? Out of the 33, about 24 have gone through the checks and the remaining are going through and it is taking time but it will get through. The second reason is also this whole airspace has got closed, Iran and the whole thing that is happening in Middle East. So as a result flights have to be diverted. When the flights are diverted, many other flights get cancelled and these two have a knock-on effect because if the flight doesn't arrive in time, that flight cannot take off and when that cannot take off we have to cancel it because there is no aircraft. The third is technical issues. And when we take off and land in any destination, you must know that we'll be doing land checks and every now and then it is common for in the land checks to find some spare part to be changed or something to be changed. Not in every flight but it does happen. So because of that there may be delays. If the spare part is there, immediately they change and immediately they take off. If the spare part is going to take time and even if it comes and then they fix it, they may lose the slot of taking off. Not taking off or arriving landing because they will close the airports at 10:00 some places etc. So these are the three things that have caused. It is not all our technical errors. But I agree with you, Air India could have been very proactive in terms of everyday saying if they're cancelling, why are they cancelling as opposed to a flight getting cancelled. And in these six days, because normally if they had not communicated then it wouldn't create so much fear, but because of what happened on the June 12th, anytime there is something happens to a delay or a diversion or cancellation, even if I was traveling I will be afraid. That is what has happened. So we are doing a better job of communication. We have not been good at it. You are admitting that communication hasn't been very strong. Absolutely. And what are the corrective measures that you are undertaking? So we have set up a communication team on top of what we have in Air India. There is a regular comms team and we have put a strategic communication team in place in the last 3 days and today we have put out the first comprehensive media statement explaining all this, what happened on the June 12th and subsequently why there has been so many cancellations. When you say and give them this number, the total number of flights we take, this is the cancellations and why these cancellations have happened. And then we have taken an additional step because we are going to feel this kind of a disruption for some more time. Our checks will be there, also the airspace closure will be there. So we have decided to reduce the number of aircrafts which are flying so that we can have a lot of buffer. You're doubling more than doubling the buffer aircrafts both in the all the widebody and the narrow body, 787s, 320s and the trip 7s. We're creating more buffer and that statement would have been issued by now.
My question to you is also about the fact that Boeing has had a series of bad press if you want to call it that, but several questions that have been following them in recent times. In fact after the crash there has been a meeting between you and the Boeing head visiting India. I want to understand from you what was this meeting all about? Safety aspects of Boeing? Are they a concern and what is it that has been red flag to Boeing in terms of the hardware, the aircraft themselves?
So I did connect with both Boeing and GE at the highest levels and to be frank, their top team from both the companies traveled and met with us. What I have asked both of them, in parallel to the DGCA checks that we have gone through, I have asked them to check and tell us any issues are there in any of the aircraft or engines.
What were your conversations with Stephanie Pope? Because many people are today talking about the spate of technical snags in quotes that have hit Air India in the recent week. Are these technical snags because of design issues or are they regular stuff that often crop up?
See, as I said, the numbers that you have said comprises multiple groupings. Some are very deliberate grounding of planes because we had to go through DGCA checks. Then a certain number had to go through or cancel primarily because of this airspace closure and diversions and disruptions due to that and the knock-on effect. Then there is a third category. So since we have not explained all of this, every cancellation has been reported in the media and I don't blame the media. I totally hold Air India and our team to account that we have to do a better job of communication. Since that was not done, everything is reported as a technical snag. But none of these technical snags are of the nature that the aircraft cannot fly. It is some part missing, something missing so far. And this is not to say that something else I will not see in the future. So at this point in time, this is the status. There is a, you know, so we have to give a very strong communication on a daily basis at least for the time being till such time the confidence is restored.
But Mr. Chandrasekaran, I want to ask you, you're talking about communication to the media. I'm talking about real communication to the customers waiting at airports. The communication link there is probably the weakest ever at this point in time. Which is why you have frayed tempers, you have agitated families, you have people expecting family coming from different locations internationally. And for most people, India doesn't begin when they land in India. India begins when they get into an Air India flight that has a destination in India. What happens to that brand name, that complete faith in the brand area?
See, I can say that in each one of these areas, whether it is communication at the gate or communication at the counters or every aspect, there has been a vast improvement but it is not where it should be. Still there is a lot of gap. So we are on a transformation journey. We have done about three years and in these three years we have had to work on every dimension, whether it is in the fleet dimension, whether it is in engineering, whether it is maintenance, whether it is safety, whether it is customer service, technology. We made progress in all dimensions but nowhere we should be. We are where we should be and we know we can get there but it is taking time.
Let me ask you, Mr. Campell, the CEO of Air India, insensitivity, I don't know, to the power infinity with his statement coming in on 13th of June which is a plagiarized statement. Now that is not something that we or anybody in India expects from Tata Group. Mr. Campell's statement has been a complete copy-paste of a statement made after a crash in January in the United States of America. How can something like this pass the muster of the Tata group?
I think there are a couple of answers here. The first one is currently the focus is about five six days now. Our focus currently is on addressing the needs of all those affected and also get stability. Get the stability. The second point I want to make is I think we can split hairs over the words but I think if you look into the spirit of what has been said, I think we should take it at this moment on what is the matter that he conveyed and then start to address issues and let investigations get done. But templated statements, almost AI generated, is that what people desire? See, I have not heard about this. I have not analyzed it word by word but this is something we look into.
You look into it. Let me also ask you, there have been issues that have been raised even in the past ever since Operation Sindur about maintenance jobs being done by the Turkish Technic company. I want to ask you, will this, you said it's not Dreamliners that it impacts, are there other planes that are maintained by them and how are we going to address that issue?
See, there are maintenance agencies. There are many of them in different parts of the world. And these contracts have been set up long-term or for a period of time. And as I said, most all the 787s are between three or four agencies, none of which is the Turkish airline or Technic. We have some maintenance of the trip 7s with them. But all these contracts, where we will do, which agency we will do, all those things are being looked at on a priority basis because these cannot be changed overnight. And in geopolitics you get into these complexities which we need to address and we take it on a priority basis and that is very much under discussion now, not after the incident, much before.
Okay. So you were already working on that.
Let me look at some of the political statements that have come up. The first one that I would want to refer to is Mr. Praful Patel, former civil aviation minister, who has brought in the angle of Singapore Airlines which has a 25.1% stake in Air India. It is a shareholder and Praful Patel has stated that it maintains a large number of Air India's widebody aircraft. They have been silent so far. This is what Mr. Praful Patel said early today on his social media account. Since then they've put out a statement, Singapore Airlines, that they have been in touch. I want to ask you: Were one of the engines serviced by Singapore Airlines and their engineering division and why have they been silent so far till Mr. Patel's tweet?
See, I can tell you Singapore Airlines have been a great partner and since we took over, they have helped us in many dimensions. Even some of the safety procedures, the best two processes we have taken from Singapore Airlines. We have taken it from Vistara and many of the processes where we needed best-in-class benchmarks, they have helped. And they have reached out even at this time. Their CEO is in constant touch with me and whether it is in customer experience and any other process, they are always available and very much they are in touch with us. And I wouldn't say anything negative. If I have to say anything about Singapore Airlines, they have been working with us closely and they have been offering all the help they can.
But Mr. Dr. Praful Patel is somebody who has seen your tie-up with Singapore Airlines when you were Vistara and then of course Air India is something he's looked at very closely and his comment on the silence of Singapore Airlines and the fact that your CEO of Air India is actually a nominee of Singapore Airlines does raise a few questions.
No, CEO is not a nominee of Singapore Airlines. In fact, when the CEO was hired by me, he had quit Singapore Airlines and joined Air India as an employee. At that time, Singapore Airlines did not have a stake. We owned 100% of Air India. And then when the Vistara merger happened with Singapore Airlines with Air India, then Singapore Airlines got their 25% stake. So he's not a nominee of Singapore Airlines.
But the question on the silence still remains. The silence of who? Singapore Airlines. As stated by a man who knows.
