Tata Sons has announced that Ilker Ayci has been appointed the CEO & MD of Air India.

The Air India board met this afternoon to consider the candidature of Mr. Ayci. N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Tata Sons, was a special invitee to this board meeting. The board after due deliberations approved the appointment of Mr. Ayci as the CEO & MD of Air India. This appointment is subject to requisite regulatory approvals.

Until very recently, Mr. Ayci, was the Chairman of Turkish Airlines and he was on the board of the company prior to that.

Mr. Chandrasekaran, said, “Ilker is an aviation industry leader who led Turkish Airlines to its current success during his tenure there. We are delighted to welcome Ilker to the Tata Group where he would lead Air India into the new era.”

Mr. Ayci was born in Istanbul in 1971. He is 1994 alumni of Bilkent University’s Department of Political Science and Public Administration. After a research stay on political science at the Leeds University in the UK in 1995, he completed an International Relations Master’s program at the Marmara University in Istanbul in 1997.