Air India on Friday announced the appointment of Klaus Goersch as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, as well as various other senior level appointments.

In the newly-created position at the airline, Goersch will oversee flight operations, engineering, ground operations, Integrated Operations Control and cabin crew functions.

Air India said incumbent chief of operations R S Sandhu will transition to an advisory role.

In a release, Air India said Sandhu's role includes focus on the harmonisation of the four Tata airlines' operating procedures, the Airbus A350 entry-into-service programme and assisting the team establishing the carrier's new training academy. A licensed B777/787 pilot, he had served in similar positions in both British Airways and Air Canada.

Air India has also announced the appointment of Manish Uppal, who transitioned from AirAsia India a few months ago, as Senior Vice President for flight operations.

Besides, Henry Donohoe's corporate safety, security and quality role will be expanded to include emergency response. His title will be changed to Senior Vice President for safety, security and quality.

According to the release, the inflight product and service design functions being headed by Sandeep Verma will move to Rajesh Dogra's Customer Experience portfolio so that the latter has oversight of all customer interfaces.

Pankaj Handa will lead ground operations, Choorah Singh will be Divisional Vice President Integrated Operations Control Centre and JuLi Ng will be Divisional Vice President for cabin crew.

Goersch, Dogra and Donohoe will report directly to Air India Managing Director and CEO Campbell Wilson. The existing management committee members Nipun Aggarwal, Satya Ramaswamy, Suresh Dutt Tripathi and Vinod Hejmadi, whose roles remain unchanged, will report to Wilson, it said.