National Aviation Company board reshuffled; Thulasidas to run Air India, Trivedi to head Air India Express

Air India chairman V Thulasidas will now directly look after the full-service airline businesses of the new National Aviation Company of India (NACIL), formed by the merger of public sector airlines Air India and Indian. Vishwapati Trivedi, joint managing director, would be in charge of the low-cost airline business, AI Express.

The civil aviation ministry revamped the board of the merged entity to include N Vaghul of ICICI as an independent director. Additional secretary Raghu Menon and joint secretary R K Singh from the ministry of civil aviation have also been appointed as directors.

S Punhani, who was finance director at Air India before the merger, has been named as the head of ground-handling business of the merged entity. Amod Sharma has been appointed as chief of the special business unit (SBU), which takes care of related businesses. For maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) KM Unni will head the MRO-Airframe SBU, while VK Sharma heads MRO (Engineering). Anita Khurana will manage the cargo businesses of the airline.

Among the functional directors, VK Verma will represent the commercial department on the board. Anup Srivastava will represent the personnel department, while S Chandrashekhar will represent the finance department.

Apart from Thulasidas, Trivedi, Raghu Menon and RK Singh, all the other directors will remain on the board of NACIL only for the balance period of their tenures as directors on the boards of the erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines, a civil aviation ministry press statement said.