Air India and IndiGo Just Hired CEOs for Two Very Different Global Goals

Two days after Willie Walsh took over as IndiGo CEO, Air India announced Tewolde Gebremariam as its new leader. Both boards chose executives with deep international credentials, but they reached for opposite skill sets, a sign of how differently each company sees its next five years. Air India: Hiring an Airline Builder Air India’s biggest challenge is no longer survival, it’s execution. Campbell Wilson was a low-cost airline generalist brought in for triage, inheriting what he called a “sinking ship” with no metrics, no accountability, and dilapidated infrastructure after decades of state ownership. Wilson has largely completed the airline’s foundational transformation: Vistara is merged, AIX Connect is integrated, the 470-plus aircraft order is placed, and the brand refresh is complete. Gebremariam’s mandate is different. At Ethiopian Airlines, he inherited a state-owned carrier in a capital-constrained environment and built it into Af