Air India appoints Gustav Baldauf as its first COO

On Tuesday Gustav Baldauf, executive vice-president of Australian airlines was appointed as the foremost Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Air India.

The decision to appoint Baldauf was taken as a conference of board of directors of the National Aviation Company India Ltd (NACIL) that runs Air India at Mumbai headquarters.

A senior Air India official unveiled that NACIL has also formed four committees individually for human resources, audit, strategy and finance. The committees are aimed to submit their reports on turnaround plan of the airline in the next month.

Your browser may not support display of this image. Apart from Baldauf, there were two other candidates short listed from 140 aspirants for the same post who were Brock Friesen, COO of Air Malta and George Reeleder, managing director of Rapidair which is a domestic service of Air Canada.

Baldauf as a COO will have the duty to salvage Air India’s fortunes in the upcoming 3 years. He had also worked as vice-president for flight operations with Jet Airways. The Austrian Airlines that is his present workplace is a part of Star Alliance that Air India expects to tie up with soon.

Amit Mitra, the secretary general of the industry lobby Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), will be the head of the HR committee while Anand Mahindra, the vice-chairman and managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra is going to guide the committee regarding audit and finance.

Your browser may not support display of this image. The turnaround plan predicts benefits of Rs.1,911 crore but the Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel has told parliament that this step will only benefit in savings of Rs.753 crore in 2010-11.