Indian Airline NEWS: Aviation min sacks Air India Express COO Pawan Arora

Pawan Arora, the embattled chief operating officer of Air India Express, has been removed from his post by the Union civil aviation ministry.

The orders for removal of Arora, one of the three men handpicked by COO of Air India Gustav Baldauf to turn around the airline, came late Friday evening.

Last year the airline had appointed Pawan Arora as COO of Air India Express, Stefan Sukumar as the chief of training and Kamaljeet Ratan as the head of corporate communications — and these appointments were seen strengthening the hands of Air India Baldauf.

Despite a series of objections emerging soon after his appointment, Arora was continuing with his duties as the COO of the low-cost arm.

Also, in the case of Sukumar, a two-member committee was set up to separately review his appointment after objections to his candidature, too, were received by the airline.

Airline sources now tell us that though the committee is yet to present its views, Sukumar has already begun facing trouble.

Last week, aviation regulator DGCA refused to hand over the FATA (Foreign Aircrew Temporary Authority) licence to Sukumar, saying it now wants documents supporting his claims of flying and training hours.

Sukumar has 4,000 hours of flying experience and 1,000 hours of training experience, mostly with foreign carriers including Lufthansa.

“Some elements within DGCA seem to be working against him...the licence was ready but at the last moment it was not handed to him. Now, the DGCA wants documents to prove his experience... all these details are available in the electronic form and Sukumar will now have to get these to get the licence,” the source said.

So have discrepancies been found now in Sukumar’s appointment also?

A civil aviation ministry official said that the ministry had found “nothing wrong” with Sukumar’s appointment and he had no idea about Sukumar facing any trouble.

On the issue of Arora, the official maintained that the AI Express COO was asked to leave and this was on record after minutes of a December board meeting were ratified by the board recently.

Since two of his three handpicked men are facing trouble, is COO Gustav Baldauf himself in the line of fire?

The ministry official said there was no review, at least till now, of Baldauf’s appointment. This, despite Baldauf trying to restructure his salary package.

“I believe that Baldauf has sought to increase the fixed component in his salary but this issue has not come to the board yet...he has no supporter in this demand anyway.”

Meanwhile, an aviation analyst pointed to the discrepancies in Air India’s management to suggest that all was not well with the ailing carrier.

“The CMD sits in Delhi, the COO pays weekly visits to Vienna instead of supervising the airline’s turnaround plan and he is also stationed in Delhi. All functional directors are expected to meet these two by flying to Delhi, wasting manhours and reducing productivity. This in itself shows how the airline top brass is damaging the functioning of the national carrier.”