Captain Arvind Kathpalia (ED, Air India), has finally made it as the first-ever Director (Operations) of the public sector airline. His appointment to this post will be effective from 28 June 2017 for a period of five years. His appointment was challenged before the court which quashed the objections against his appointment. This prompted the Ministry of Covil Aviation to issue him the joining letter. May it be noted that the PESB had selected him for the post on 24 May 2016 which the ACC cleared on 31 March 2017. The newly created post of Director Operations requires a commercial pilot with at least 10,000 hours of flying experience with various type of aircraft available in the passenger transportation segment in India. Out of 10,000 hours of flying experience, a pilot is required to have spent 5,000 hours 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. Kathpalia's appointment ran into turbulence earlier this year following allegations of having skipped the pre-flight test. The DGCA, then, suspended his flying license 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 analyzer 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/ED of operations.