Air India plane crash: Chandrasekaran urges staff to stay 'strong' and build a 'safer' airline
In his first address to Air India employees days after the fatal Ahmedabad crash, Air India Chairman
N. Chandrasekaran
urged staff to stay strong and resolute and said, "Our job is to get Air India into a better place, the place it deserves, the place this country deserves, the place where all the people who have trust on us deserve."
Speaking to nearly 700 employees and the leadership team at Air India Headquarters and Air India Training Academy in Gurugram on Monday,
Chandrasekaran
urged employees to remain strong, resilient, and committed to building a 'safer' airline, according to sources.
The June 12 crash has been one of the worst aviation disasters in India's recent history, prompting a detailed investigation. Air India and parent company
Tata Group
have announced financial assistance of Rs 1.25 crore for the families of those killed onboard.
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Chandrasekaran, according to sources, also spoke on the technical challenges of the aviation industry. This comes after the aviation watchdog DGCA on Friday ordered enhanced safety inspection of Air India's
Boeing 787 Dreamliner
fleet. The authorities have completed checks on eleven planes from Air India's fleet of Dreamliners. There are 26 Boeing 787-8s and 7 Boeing 787-9s in the fleet of Air India owned by Tata Group.
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"It's a very complex business… a complex machine, so a lot of redundancies, checks and balances, certifications, which have been perfected over years and years. Yet this happens, so we will figure out why it happens after the investigation," Chandrasekaran said.
Acknowledging the magnitude of the loss, Chandrasekaran said, "Whatever I say and whatever we do is not going to bring the lives back. Those affected, they're going to feel the pain for a very long time. But having said that, we have got to do our very best humanly possible to help each of them."
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Chandrasekaran, who had personally visited the crash site, described the experience as deeply distressing. "I went to the site on that day…. it was not easy at all. I know many of you here in this room are part of the Emergency Response Team, may be even at the site or were handling all the shocks of that day," he said. "I've seen a reasonable number of crises in my career, but this is the most heartbreaking one which I never thought I would see."
Amid public criticism following the incident, Chandrasekaran acknowledged the emotional toll on employees. "Criticisms are there, and those of us who are very passionate, who are emotional, who give our best to the job that we perform, who are working on making this airline a great airline, and who genuinely care about what kind of a company we want to build, but it's not easy to face criticisms," he said.
Calling for resilience in the face of the tragedy, Chandrasekaran urged staff to focus on determination. "If you feel distraught, the word you should remember is determination. We are going to get through this. We need to show resilience. We need to use this incident as an act of force to build a safer airline."
On the ongoing investigation, he urged the employees to stay the course. "Be more determined in everything we do. We need to wait for the investigation to find out," the
Tata Sons
chief added.
Concluding his address, Chandrasekaran told employees that every small contribution mattered to the airline's future. "Big things get done by small actions. Every small action that you do and is executed perfectly helps the collective thing flourish. That's why we continue to focus on doing each of our jobs and with all humility. That's what should be our goal. Just stay the course," he said.
Sources told that before the interaction, Chandrasekaran visited the airline's Emergency Command Centre, Integrated Operations Control Centre, and Customer Service and Support teams at the Gurugram headquarters.
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