In a single month, India's two largest airlines lost their CEOs. Pieter Elbers was pushed out of IndiGo following a catastrophic December 2025 meltdown that stranded 300,000 passengers and wiped 78% of profits. Campbell Wilson chose a more dignified exit from Air India, a planned departure from a carrier still bleeding billions, scarred by a fatal Ahmedabad crash, and hamstrung by a decades of legacy issues. Two expats, two very different tenures, two very different endings. In this episode, host Anirban Chowdhury talks to ET's aviation tracker Arindam Majumdar and John Strickland, a global aviation expert and founder of JLS Consulting to break down what went wrong, where both airlines stand today, Air India’s top-level void and the task ahead for Willie Walsh, one of global aviation’s toughest leaders slated to head IndiGo.
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