The government has decided to shift Air India's headquarters from the iconic AI Building at Mumbai's Nariman Point to central Delhi's Airline House, which used to be headquarters of erstwhile Indian Airlines. The cash-strapped airline plans to rent out the Nariman Point building and generate funds.

The aviation ministry is also approaching some eminent aviation experts to fill the independent director vacancies caused by two resignations some months back. And, Prabhat Kumar, a senior IAS officer, who was till recently OSD to aviation minister Ajit Singh, has taken over as joint secretary in charge of AI and will be on the airline's board.

Aviation minister Ajit Singh took the decision to shift AI's HQ for operational reasons as the merged airline (with IA) has maximum flights from Delhi's terminal 3 (which is its primary hub now). Also, the Rs 30,000-crore government bailout the airline is supposed to get over eight years by meeting some milestones means its top brass has to spend more time in Delhi to interact with various ministries.

"The airline has most of its flights from Delhi. The airline brass needs to have lot of interaction with government functionaries in Delhi. In such circumstances, it may not be not feasible for the chairman and managing director to equally divide his time between Delhi and Mumbai. Shifting of HQ to Delhi is part of the rationalization move to have everything in one place," Singh said.

The authorities expect some resistance to this move as the erstwhile AI unions may see it as a move to "further Indian Airlinise of AI".

(You need to login first to read complete news).
New User? Register for FREE!
» Back to Travel News