Air India has made significant progress in the transformation journey: N Chandrasekaran

Air India, the Tata Group-owned airline, has had a difficult FY26. Tata Sons’ Chairman, N Chandrasekaran, in a letter to shareholders was, however, optimistic on the way forward.

“A nation of 1.4 billion people, with one of the world’s fastest growing economies, deserves a world-class flag carrier. Rebuilding Air India is a long journey: fleet renewal, training, service transformation, network expansion. Every great airline in history was built over decades, not quarters,” he said.

According to him, few businesses are as vulnerable to war and fuel pressures as aviation. “This year, Air India faced three external headwinds. Air space closures; West Asia conflict-driven fuel price hikes and foreign exchange fluctuations; and the crash of AI171 made it the most challenging year for Air India. At every stage, Air India’s teams responded with resilience and adaptability,” Chandrasekaran stated in his letter, that went as apart of the annual report for FY26.

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Significant progress, he went on to say, has been made in the transformation journey. “The narrow body aircraft for domestic routes have been refurbished and have been receiving strong positive customer feedback. The wide body aircraft are expected to complete refurbishment by end of FY28. The airline’s NPS (Net Promoter Score) have improved from -35 in FY23 to +42 in June 2026. Currently, Air India has the best on-time arrival performance in India (June 2026),” Chandrasekaran stated.

This formed a part of the letter that highlighted the part on his view that “the institutions we are seeding now with long gestation periods I believe we are at another such moment. The next industrial revolution is being designed and built right now, and its building blocks are silicon, connectivity, energy and security.” Here, he outlined the financial performance and plans for Tata Electronics, Tata Digital, Tejas Networks and Air India, among others.

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“Given where it began, Air India’s transformation must be seen as a five- to ten-year journey, considering the years-long supply chain disruptions in key components, the need to overhaul legacy systems, culture and fleet, and the creation of a large cadre of technical and airline professionals,” said Chandrasekaran. The commitment, he added, is to give India “a carrier that connects it to the world with pride, creates hundreds of thousands of jobs across aviation, tourism and logistics, and makes India a global aviation hub rather than a market others fly through.”