Air India weighs a shared HR, finance and engineering desk with Express

Tata Sons-led Air India is examining a plan to put some departments of Air India and Air India Express under common teams. People familiar with the talks told BusinessLine that human resources, finance, information technology and engineering are on the list. No decision has been taken. If the board approves the plan, implementation would take about six months. Air India did not answer queries.

Marketing is already a group function. Network planning, sales and distribution, and revenue management already sit under shared leadership. Air India Express still has its own heads of human resources and finance. The proposal would replace those separate heads with one team serving both airlines, while the two brands and the two business models stay intact.

The cost case is in the FY26 filings. Air India and Air India Express, with joint ventures and subsidiaries, reported a combined loss of ₹22,238 crore on revenue of about ₹71,870 crore. On a standalone basis Air India lost ₹15,368 crore. Air India Express lost ₹6,767 crore. Express revenue rose 19 percent to ₹19,088 crore, and operating expenses were ₹20,663 crore, so the low-cost carrier was loss-making even as sales grew.

Regulatory filings reported earlier in September put the consolidated picture in harder numbers. Total income fell to ₹71,869.94 crore from ₹78,635.61 crore the year before. Expenses rose to ₹93,733.31 crore from ₹89,317.12 crore. The previous year's consolidated loss was ₹10,858.83 crore. The loss has roughly doubled.

Foreign exchange loss was the sharpest single swing, from ₹1,545.01 crore to ₹7,388.23 crore. Aircraft repair and maintenance rose to ₹14,976.45 crore from ₹13,901.82 crore. Fuel fell, to ₹26,871.80 crore from ₹29,023.37 crore. Exceptional items were ₹429.05 crore, including an amount tied to the AI171 crash of June 2025, which killed 260 people. The parent said hull and liability cover was in place.

Those lines explain why a shared back office is on the table. A duplicate HR team or a duplicate engineering desk does not move fuel or the rupee. It does move the controllable slice of a ₹93,733 crore cost base. The group has already done this once, with marketing. The new talks extend the same logic to the functions that still have two heads.

The limit is operational. Express is a different product, with a different network and a different cost target. A common engineering team can standardise vendor contracts. It cannot fly a 787 and an Express narrow-body as if they were the same aeroplane. A common finance team can close one set of books for the group. It still has to report two airlines to the regulator.

The six-month window, if the plan is approved, runs into the winter schedule and into whatever remains of the post-crash recovery in international bookings. Airspace closures and fuel volatility are still in the filings as reasons the loss widened. A shared IT stack will not reopen a closed airway. It can cut the cost of running two airlines that already share a commercial desk.

Until a decision is published, the only confirmed facts are the functions under discussion, the functions already combined, and the FY26 loss split of ₹15,368 crore and ₹6,767 crore. That split is the reason the proposal exists.

The brand split is the part of the plan that is not on the table. Air India Express keeps its name and its low-cost model. Air India keeps the full-service mark. What moves, if the talks end in a yes, is the staff who hire, pay, code and maintain. Sources told BusinessLine the integration of those four functions could be done in about six months. That is a planning estimate, not a start date. No board minute has been published.

Readers comparing the two loss figures should keep the perimeter straight. The ₹22,238 crore is consolidated, and it includes joint ventures and subsidiaries. The ₹15,368 crore and the ₹6,767 crore are the two airline results inside that total. They do not add to the consolidated number because other lines sit in the group. The useful point is the direction: both flying companies lost money in FY26, and the group loss was about double the year before.

A shared engineering desk would also inherit the maintenance bill that has already risen, from ₹13,901.82 crore to ₹14,976.45 crore. Combining teams does not cut the shop-visit cost of an ageing fleet. It can cut the cost of two procurement teams buying the same part. That is the scale of saving this proposal can actually claim.