Air India invests $200 mn to expand digital capabilities

Tata Group-backed Air India has made an investment of $200 million to modernise its digital systems, and digital engineering services through its Vihaan.AI transformation program, the airline said on Monday. The airline expects to sustain the pace of investment over the next five years. According to the airline, while many initiatives regarding this have been completed, several more are in advanced stages towards completion.

The airline says that the objective is to transform customer engagement and drastically improve operational efficiencies, as Air India explores emerging trends such as the application of quantum computing to solve optimisation challenges in the industry.

"The scope of the technology transformation at Air India is extensive and covers every aspect of the airline including commercial, engineering, operations, ground handling, finance, human resources, and corporate functions. We are empowering employees across the company, ranging from our frontline flying staff to ground crew with the best technology capabilities to help them excel at their jobs. We are adopting a cloud-only, mobile-friendly, design-rich, AI-infused, digital-first approach to all our technology initiatives that we are executing with speed," says Satya Ramaswamy, chief digital and technology officer, Air India.

Some of the key areas where the airline has already deployed new technology systems or is in the advanced stages of deployments are customer engagement by harnessing the power of ChatGPT-driven chatbots, employee empowerment, operational improvements, and enterprise systems transformation.

"The modernisation of Air India’s digital and technology landscape will also benefit all the group airlines including the low-cost carriers. Emphasis is also being laid on having common systems across the full[1]service and the low-cost segments to gain from economies-of-scale and economies-of-learning across all the group airlines, driven by common platforms and a shared world-class team," the airline said.

Tata Group-backed Indian carrier is investing in efficient measures to adopt sustainability as part of its regular fleet operations — including inducting new aircraft, better procedures and driving operations with the deployment of innovative technology.

Earlier this month, the airline signed an agreement with KSU Aviation to launch TaxiBot operations at Delhi and Bengaluru airports for its Airbus A320 aircraft, in a bid to save approximately 15,000 tonnes of jet fuel in the next 3 years. “A semi-robotic equipment, the TaxiBot, once attached to the aircraft, acts as an extension of the aircraft’s nose landing gear. It is used to tow aircraft from the airport terminal gate to the taxi-out point and to tow aircraft from the terminal gate after landing (taxi-in phase) without utilising the aircraft’s engines, thus saving jet fuel. The pioneering technology curbs fuel consumption, carbon emissions, noise levels, as well as costs for airlines,” the airline said.

Last year, the Air India group entered a Memorandum of Understanding with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – Indian Institute of Petroleum to collaborate on the research, development, and deployment of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs).

On January 27 last year, the soft-to-software conglomerate took over the management and control of Air India from the government, after 69 years by making a bid of ₹18,000 crore. The airline is now handled by Tata Sons' wholly-owned, newly-formed subsidiary Talace. In February this year,  Air India scripted history by announcing to buy 470 aircraft — 250 from Airbus and 220 from Boeing—for a total value of $80 billion, which is the largest order by any single carrier.