Tata group owner?Tata Sons, which took over?Air India?earlier this year in January, seems to be leaving no stone unturned in reviving the airline. In the pursuit of reviving Air India, Tata Sons has been putting its strengths together.
In what is seen as the most challenging airline turnarounds in contemporary times, different group companies under Tata are using their core competence to revive the Maharaja using their core competence. As per the TOI report, Taj Hotels' flight catering arm TajSATS, for instance, has from Day One of Air India's homecoming this January been delivering improved onboard meals.
Air India MD & CEO Campbell Wilson has detailed the role being played by other Tata companies in the turnaround process. "TajSATS is assisting very much in catering here.?"For crew accommodation, (there is) the Indian Hotels Company (Taj).?Tata Technologies?has been helping design some of the obsolete or out-of-stock aircraft seat components or other components in aircraft (by) doing 3D design and manufacturing from scratch so that we can accelerate repair of seats," Wilson, an aviation veteran from Tatas' long-trusted airline partner Singapore Airlines (SIA), said.
Broken, torn or not fully functional business seats are the bane of?Air India's passengers, especially on the wide bodies used for medium-to ultra-long hauls.
And it is not easy to find spares, which makes 3D manufacturing of the same critical. "We have found it difficult in some cases to get some components because the seat product is quite old and, in some cases, no longer in production. Then you throw in the supply chain constraints that every industry is facing... The design of many of these components is not as robust as today's seats. So we can fix a seat today and, in a month's time, the same problem may recur. That we are building a supply of spares to keep repairing things that continue to break," Air India CEO Wilson reportedly said.
Tata Group's IT giant?TCS is a "significant contributor" to the IT rebuild of Air India's backbone.?A team from Tata Business Excellence, comprising representatives from most group companies that do business analysis to lift the performance of each company, has been at Air India "helping us identify where opportunities for improvement and efficiency are".
So, overall, Air India is getting expertise from each group company under Tata, depending on the strength of the latter.
For example, as per the TOI report, procurement policies are being adopted by Tata Motors and?Tata Steel?to make a template for getting aircraft spares and other practices.
"There is a huge amount of sharing within and across the?Tata Group both in terms of intellectual property and business practices," Air India's CEO said.
Also Read;?Air India CEO?Designate Sends First Message To Staff
The four Tata airlines¡ªAl, Al Express, Vistara, and AirAsia India¡ªare also collaborating more.?.
Also, Vistara, with whom there have been reports of a?possible merger, is taking pilots on deputation from AirAsia India. These airlines will reportedly accept each other's passengers in case of flight disruptions.
Also Read:?Tata Sons?Likely To Write Off AirAsia?India's?Rs 2600 Crore Loss
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