Air India considers departed Garuda CFO for top finance position

Air India Ltd. is considering appointing Balagopal Kunduvara as chief financial officer, tapping the veteran of Singapore Airlines Ltd. to help revive the Indian carrier’s finances after a record loss, according to people familiar with the matter.

Kunduvara is a frontrunner for the position, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. Most recently, he was finance chief for Garuda Indonesia, a position he recently left after holding the job for little more than a year.

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Prior to that, Kunduvara spent more than two decades at Singapore Airlines, which is a partial owner of Air India alongside conglomerate Tata Group. Air India is seeking 100 billion rupees ($1.1 billion) in funding from its owners, Bloomberg News reported previously.

An Air India spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Air India is in the midst of a turnaround effort led by newly appointed Chief Executive Officer Tewolde Gebremariam after it posted a loss of more than 220 billion rupees last fiscal year. Tewolde has said he will focus on cutting costs.

Kunduvara announced his departure from Garuda in a post on LinkedIn. While his time at the airline had been “relatively brief,” it coincided with an important period in the company’s transformation, he said.

A spokesperson for Garuda confirmed that Kunduvara had left the company.

Kunduvara would take the CFO role as Air India faces high fuel costs due to the war in Iran. It also has to contend with geopolitical challenges that include a drop in traffic to the Middle East and being barred from Pakistani airspace, which forces west-bound flights from its main hub in New Delhi to take a circuitous route.

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Tewolde, who previously led Ethiopian Airlines Group, has been looking to bolster Air India’s underperforming cargo business, and integrate key departments at Air India and its low-cost arm, Air India Express, to cut costs.

The CEO is also looking at whether more flights to Europe and the US should be routed through Mumbai instead of Delhi to get around the Pakistani airspace closing.