Who is Vinod Kannan, a frontrunner in the race for Air India CEO position?

Vinod Kannan, whose name has emerged as a front-runner for the Air India CEO position, is an industry veteran with over six years of experience at Tata Sons in different roles at Vistara, which was finally merged with Air India in November 2024. His name is doing rounds along with Air India’s commercial head Nipun Aggarwal. 

Vistara was a joint venture of Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Kannan joined as its Chief Strategy Officer in 2019. He was named as Chief Commercial Officer in 2020, at a time when Covid-19 hit, impacting the aviation industry globally.

He was named as Chief Executive Officer in 2022 and led Vistara's recovery from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the merger of Air India and Vistara in 2024, he managed the integration of the two airlines’ aircraft, people, and business processes as Air India’s Chief Integration Officer.

Air India CEO Campbell Wilson has resigned and Tata Sons is looking for a candidate to lead Air India, which is facing huge losses and operational challenges amidst geopolitical tensions in West Asia.  

Why is Kannan being considered?

SIA holds a 25.1% stake in Air India post the merger. Air India has recently approached the SAI for funds, amidst reports that Air India is expected to post Rs 20,000 crore losses in FY26.     

Kannan has over six years of experience working with the Tata group and was responsible for the integration of two airlines, coming from totally different backgrounds.

Air India came with a legacy challenge under the government for years, having unions and a very structured operational department. Vistara, the newest full-service carrier of India, started in 2015, and had this modern outlook and premier service offered to passengers under Tata Sons.          

An industry insider says that Kannan understands Air India well for successfully led the integration with Vistara.

What is the SIA association?     

In April 2025, Kannan was appointed as Senior Vice President Sales and Marketing at Singapore Airlines, overseeing the E-commerce, Global and Corporate Sales, Brand and Marketing, and Pricing and Merchandising departments, and the sales regions.

Kannan began his career with Singapore Airlines (SIA) in 2001 as a Cadet Administrative Officer. After serving in the e-commerce, network planning, and passenger sales teams, he was posted overseas in 2007 and had stints as Manager Eastern India, General Manager Middle East, General Manager Italy, and General Manager Indonesia.

He returned to Singapore in 2015 as Senior Manager Network Planning and was promoted to Vice President Network Planning in 2016. He then assumed the role of Chief Commercial Officer at Scoot, SIA’s low-cost subsidiary, in 2017.

He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Nanyang Technological University, a Master of Science in High Performance Computing from the Singapore MIT Alliance, and an Executive MBA from UCLA-NUS.