Air India: Selling a Turnaround Before It Is Finished
Air India · Change Is in the Air / That's Air India Now
Air India, now owned by the Tata Group, launched an India-focused brand campaign called "Change Is in the Air" with the creative signature "That's Air India Now." It is the airline's public claim that its post-privatisation transformation is real and visible, with over 90% of domestic flights set to carry the new experience by end-2026, up from around 80% today. It matters because it is a rare live case of a legacy brand trying to reset deep-rooted perceptions while the product overhaul is still only mid-way.
The objective
The campaign's core objective is perception repair at national scale. Air India carries years of accumulated baggage from its pre-privatisation era, while the Tata-led transformation has been rebuilding the actual product through fleet retrofits and new aircraft. The task now is to make Indian flyers update their mental picture of the airline to match the improving reality. Usefully, the campaign attaches that soft goal to a hard number, by end-2026 over 90% of domestic flights will offer the new experience, up from roughly 80% today, which converts a vague promise of change into a commitment students and flyers can actually track. The signature line 'That's Air India Now' states the objective plainly, it asks the audience to swap an old association for a new one, while 'Change Is in the Air' frames the shift as already in motion rather than merely promised.
The insight
The work is built on a sharp read of low expectations, Indian flyers do not expect much from Air India, so genuine surprise is the most credible emotion the brand can play. The five films are constructed around spontaneous reactions of surprise and pride from real passengers meeting refurbished cabins, better dining and new inflight entertainment. Surprise works precisely because it admits the low prior, the brand does not pretend people always loved it. Pride adds a second layer, Air India is a national carrier under Tata ownership, so its recovery can be framed as something Indians feel some stake in. The slice-of-life treatment keeps the claim in believable human moments rather than corporate declaration, which matters for a brand whose past improvement claims were often met with scepticism.
The strategy
Strategically this is a repositioning led by product proof rather than mood. Air India is not inventing a new personality, it is showing tangible evidence, refurbished Economy, Premium Economy and Business cabins, elevated dining, the Vista Stream entertainment system, better connectivity and Indian hospitality, and letting that evidence do the repositioning. The India focus is deliberate, domestic flyers are where the perception gap is widest and where the 90% coverage milestone lands soonest. The strategy also plays a longer game through loyalty, the Maharaja Club and its 10 million members are moving to a unified group loyalty programme, with new lounges planned in Delhi, San Francisco and New York. The central tension is left visible in the framing, the airline must lift expectations enough to drive trial without promising a finished product, because the transformation is still mid-way.
The execution
Execution takes the form of five films, each anchored to one specific, checkable improvement, refurbished cabins across Economy, Premium Economy and Business, elevated dining, the Vista Stream inflight entertainment system, better connectivity and Indian hospitality. The creative device is held constant across the set, real passengers reacting with unscripted surprise and pride, shot slice-of-life rather than as polished brand theatre. That choice does two jobs at once, it shows the product change on screen, and it models the exact reaction the brand wants a viewer to have on their next flight. The recurring sign-off 'That's Air India Now' works as the campaign's memory hook, one repeatable line that ties five separate product stories into a single perception claim. Because every film rests on something physically installed in the aircraft, the execution stays on the defensible side of the expectation-management problem.
The media mix
The plan is built for national reach, spanning TV, digital, print and social, with T20 cricket sponsorships as the mass-attention anchor. Cricket is the logical vehicle for a campaign whose job is to move perception across a whole country quickly, it delivers scale and shared cultural moments that TV and print alone cannot. Digital and social carry the full-length films to audiences willing to watch product-focused stories, while TV and print hold broad frequency on the core repositioning line. The India-only weighting matches the message, since the 90% domestic coverage milestone is the campaign's central proof point. Beyond paid media, loyalty acts as an owned channel, the Maharaja Club's 10 million members and the shift to a unified group programme give the brand a direct line to its most valuable and most frequent flyers.
The results
Measured results are not public. Air India has not disclosed campaign performance metrics, and the agency behind the work has not been named either, so there is no released data on reach, brand-lift or booking impact to assess. What the trade-press coverage supports is narrow, the campaign registered in India's marketing press as a notable brand moment in the airline's post-privatisation story, and the company has tied it to one verifiable operational milestone, over 90% of domestic flights carrying the new experience by end-2026. That milestone is the honest way to judge this campaign over time, if product delivery keeps pace with the advertising, the work will look prescient, and if it does not, the gap will be visible to every flyer. Students should quote no numbers beyond these, because none have been released.
Why it worked
Read through a framework lens, this is a clean repositioning play. The positioning moves from the legacy association of an unreliable state carrier to a modern Tata-run airline, and 'That's Air India Now' is that positioning compressed into three words. On STP it targets domestic Indian flyers, the segment where perception lags product most and where the 90% milestone lands first. It builds a distinctive asset by repeating one creative signature across five films, so the brand owns a recognisable device rather than five disconnected ads. Salience is bought through T20 cricket, attaching the message to the country's biggest shared attention moments. Each film also maps to a different category entry point, cabin comfort, food, entertainment, connectivity and hospitality, so whichever need triggers the next booking, a fresh memory of Air India is waiting there. Proof before promise keeps the whole structure credible.
Watchouts
The biggest risk is the expectation gap the campaign itself names, the transformation is mid-way, and roughly one in five domestic flights today still lacks the new experience. A flyer moved by the advertising who then boards an unretrofitted aircraft gets the exact disconfirmation the campaign is trying to erase, and that let-down now carries the extra sting of a broken promise. Perception repair also moves slower than a media schedule, decades of association do not reverse in one cycle, so the work needs sustained spend and consistent operational delivery behind it. The absence of disclosed metrics means outsiders cannot yet verify effectiveness, and trade-press attention should not be mistaken for proof of impact. Finally, migrating 10 million Maharaja Club members into a unified group programme is a change-management exercise in its own right, and loyalty transitions are a well-known source of member frustration when handled poorly.
- 01When repositioning a legacy brand, lead with verifiable product proof, Air India anchored every film to a physical improvement a flyer can check on the next trip.
- 02Tie brand promises to operational milestones, the 90% domestic coverage target by end-2026 turns an advertising claim into a trackable commitment.
- 03Low expectations can be a creative asset, spontaneous surprise from real passengers only rings true because the audience did not expect Air India to be good.
- 04Advertising a mid-way transformation is a calculated risk, every unretrofitted flight the ads fill up is a chance to disconfirm the new positioning.
- 05A repeated creative signature like 'That's Air India Now' turns five separate product stories into one distinctive, memorable brand asset.
In a GD or PI, reach for this case when the topic touches rebranding, turnarounds, services marketing, or the gap between brand promise and delivery. The move is to frame it as expectation management, not advertising. A concrete sayable line: 'Air India's Change Is in the Air is interesting because it advertises a transformation that is only mid-way, about 80% of domestic flights have the new experience today, rising past 90% by end-2026, so the real bet is that product delivery outruns the expectations the ads create.' From there you can steer wherever the panel goes, into positioning for a branding question, into service delivery for an operations question, or into the ethics of overpromising for a strategy question. Naming both the creative device, real passenger surprise, and the operational milestone shows you read campaigns as business decisions, not just ads.
Sourced from the trade press
Full credit to the original publishers. This decode is MarQuest's independent read of their coverage.