Racist backlash is not going to bump Air NZ flight path under Ravishankar

By Gurbir Singh

With Nikhil Ravishankar in the pilot’s seat from Oct 2025, the flight path of Air New Zealand ahead, hopefully, will not be bumpy in spite of racial ire being aired online by some critics.

His handling of challenges while at the helm is likely to be under intense scrutiny, especially by those critical of his promotion as the chief executive.

Ravishankar – the current chief digital officer, will have to work extra hard to yield desired results and bring about the expected ‘new perspective’ . His challenges, however, seem to have already started.

Elevation to the top position of this 44-year old India-born digital specialist has been widely welcomed, though there are a handful of upset critics who have triggered a racial backlash on social media. For them, the ethnicity of this new CEO who is to lead a global airlines with a revenue of $6.75 billon (2024), is difficult to accept.

Unpalatable and angry comments online forced several news media channels, including RNZ, 1News and Herald to disable comments or restrict who could comment.

Some of the comments posted are: “It’s hard to trust an Indian…”;  “From the waka in the sky, to the curry in the sky. I’ll never go on that dump of an airline again”; “Be travelling with chickens and pigs next flight”; “air nz soon to become air india”;  “As long as a he is not a pilot then it’s OK”; “New Zealand is now becoming Little India”;  “Next minute, all the Air NZ employees will be of the Asian variety”, and so on.

For some Kiwis, person at the helm ought to be “one of us” (meaning a Kiwi), ignorant of the fact that Nikhil Ravishankar had all his education – including his schooling, in New Zealand. He studied at Mt Albert Grammar School and St Josephs Boys High School before acquiring his BSc and BCom qualifications from the University of Auckland.

The man behind many of the recent technological advancements at the airline and how the airlines delivered experiences for their customers, was none other than Ravishankar who joined Air NZ in  September 2021.

At that time, the airline’s digital systems to manage flight operations, customer complaints, etc  were reportedly aging. Ravishankar did a strategic digital reset and tied-up with global giant IT consultancy and software companies to handle all logistics through cloud connectivity.

Ravishankar has already made known his intentions to establish Air NZ as the world’s leading digital airline. “If we want to become that, then we need to stop thinking of ourselves as an airline with a fantastic digital department, and as a digital business that happens to be an airline,” he is reported to have commented.

In an interview with a publication CIO, he said “digital in its broadest sense is not just technology, but the experiences we deliver for our customers, the new business models we can put in place, the way we govern the organisation, the way we deliver change and everything in between.”

Nikhi Ravishankar who “does not chase attention” is said to be behind many of the recent technological advancements at the airline, including “rolling out iPads to cabin crew to discover things such as 72% of the blue cheese handed out in flight never gets eaten, to deployment to the company’s hangars to speed aircraft maintenance,” as reported by Reseller News.

Earlier this year, Ravishankar is also said to have initiated a “game-changer” project – trialing Starlink satellite Wi-Fi on domestic flights. With his background, it is expected that digitisation of customer engagement with the airlines will bring about a drastic change.

Only a week or so back, Air NZ announced its collaboration to use artificial intelligence software ChatGPT, for example, to help avoid flight delays.

“This collaboration represents more than just access to new tools – it’s a commitment to staying at the forefront of innovation and giving our people the best technology to thrive. We’re excited to see how AI will transform the way we work,” said Ravishankar.

Irrespective of what his critics may say, Nikhi Ravishankar’s performance in coming years will prove that in spite of having no past credentials as chief executive and being a technocrat of Indian-origin, he will pilot the airline and take it to soaring heights.

His name will now be added to the long list of top Indian-origin CEOs of the likes of Sundar Pichai (Alphabet/Google), Satya Nadelle (Microsoft), Neal Mohan (You Tube), Arvind Krishna (IBM)…the list goes on and on.