Captain Arvind Kathpalia (ED, Air India) finally makes it as first-ever Director (Operations) of Air India. PESB had selected him for the post on 24 May 2016 which the ACC cleared yesterday. The post, created in the third week of November 2015, was advertised on 09 March 2016. Unlike the other CPSEs, Air India had narrowed down the competition by making flight experience a mandatory qualification for the post of Director (Operations). The post required a commercial pilot with at least 10,000 hours of flying experience in the various type of aircraft available in the passenger transportation in India, of which 5,000 hours to be as Pilot-in-Command on any type of aircraft in the current fleet of Air India i.e. Airbus, Boeing and turbo-prop type of aircraft. It may be reiterated that PESB had shortlisted five candidates for selection interview namely; Capt Anil Kumar Govil (ED, AIL), Capt Chetan Prakash (ED, AIL), Capt Arvind Kathpalia (ED, AIL), Capt Amitabh Singh (GM, AIL) and Air Vice Marshal Amit Tiwari (MoD). He ran into rough weather earlier this year following allegations of skipping the pre-flight test. The DGCA then suspended his flying licence for three months. Kathpalia told the probe panel that he had driven straight to the aircraft after attending a meeting with officials of the civil aviation regulator as the flight was getting late. However, it is mandatory for the pilots to undertake the breath analyser test to ensure that they are not drunk before entering the cockpits. The airline had recently made him ED (special projects), appointing another pilot as head or ED of operations.