Grounded carrier Jet Airways on Friday announced the appointment of Sanjiv Kapoor as the chief executive officer. His appointment to the post comes days after the airline brought in former Sri Lankan Airlines CEO Vipula Gunatileka as the chief financial officer. Kapoor, who is currently the president of Oberoi Hotels and Resorts, has been associated with budget carriers SpiceJet and GoAir as well as with full-service carrier Vistara in various capacities in the past.
Jet Airways CEO-designate Sanjiv Kapoor has quit the grounded airline, according to a source. He had joined the airline as the chief executive officer in April last year. The source said that Friday was the last working day for Kapoor at the airline.
The appointment followed the resignation of Nikos Kardassis on June 7 after he served two terms as CEO between 1993-1999 and again from October 2009 till May 2013.
Jet Airways had appointed Ball as its CEO in May last year.
In signs of increasing differences, Jet Airways' winning bidder Jalan Kalrock Consortium on Tuesday asked the airline monitoring committee's authorised representative Ashish Chhawcharia not to issue any communication on behalf of the grounded carrier without approval of all the members of the committee. Amid the continuing uncertainty over the fate of Jet Airways, which shuttered operations in April 2019, the consortium on Tuesday wrote a letter to Chhawcharia. The latest development comes more than a week after Chhawchharia reportedly shot off a letter to Sanjiv Kapoor, asking him to refrain from using the title of CEO as he was only a CEO-designate.
Jet Airways conducted its test flight to and from the Hyderabad airport on Thursday in a step towards obtaining the air operator certificate. Jet Airways, which has not flown since April 17, 2019, is currently in the process of re-launching operations under its new promoters Jalan-Kalrock Consortium. On Thursday, the airline's CEO Sanjiv Kapoor said on Twitter that the test flight's operation was a very emotional moment "for all the wonderful folks who have been working hard to get Jet back in the skies".
Rumours of Prock-Schaeur's departure have been rife ever since he completed three years with the airline (which was when his contract freed him to leave the carrier without any financial implications). Wolfgang's departure will be the latest in a series of departures from Jet Airways. In the last few weeks, Kingfisher has lured away several senior executives including Murli Ramachandran, senior general manager for airport services.
The company's chief operating officer Capt Hameed Ali will be the acting CEO.
The top-level exodus at Naresh Goyal-promoted Jet Airways continued on Friday, with chief financial officer and acting CEO Ravishankar Gopalakrishnan quitting.
Etihad has high hopes from Jet Airways deal in which it bought out majority stake in 2013.
Both Jet Airways and Go First have met with a similar fate of landing up in insolvency, albeit for different reasons. Whether Go First will be able to avoid the sharp erosion in value like in the case of Jet, experts say, will depend on how quickly it is able to restart operations and retain its slots at airports. Go First, owned by the Wadia group, filed for voluntary corporate insolvency resolution on May 2 due to inadequate capacity utilisation that led to a cash crunch.
Extending support to agitating Jet Airways pilots, eight major trade unions have asked the airline management to take back the two pilots it had sacked and recognise the National Aviators Guild, which is spearheading the stir.
Kardassis, who quit the airline in 2013, will advise Goyal and senior management on cost-saving and productivity improvement
A day after Qantas sought to expand its presence in India by code-sharing with Jet Airways, the Singapore-based Jetstar Asia, a regional extension of Qantas, said it is also considering an alliance with the Indian carrier.
India will require 1,740 planes over the next 20 years.
Karnik was mandated to oversee commercial and sales functions of the airline. He took over from Hameed Ali, who joined the airline's board.
'Shouldn't the DGCA ensure both safety and convenience of passengers?' 'And convenience has been a casualty as nobody knows which Jet flight would be grounded next, throwing passengers' plans in disarray,' says Nivedita Mookerji.
'Shouldn't the DGCA ensure both safety and convenience of passengers?' 'And convenience has been a casualty as nobody knows which Jet flight would be grounded next, throwing passengers' plans in disarray,' says Nivedita Mookerji.
Switching to a damage-control mode, bankers and government officials claimed that Jet Airways wouldn't fall even if Etihad refuses to back the resolution plan and exits.
In another development, SBI Capital Markets, which had issued the expressions of interest on April 8, extended the deadline for submission of initial bids to April 12.
Jet Airways -- which has been flying for 25 years - on Friday described reports that the airline cannot fly beyond 60 days as "incorrect and malicious" as well as denied any talks of stake sale.
Jet Airways is in discussions with aircraft manufacturers and lessors to lease 6-8 planes, including some of those which were to be delivered to Russian carriers prior to the Ukraine war, as it gets ready for the relaunch, according to sources. Moreover, the airline is also negotiating with airport operators to secure slots with "good" timings, they said. Once a major player in the Indian aviation space, the carrier has not flown since April 17, 2019 and is being revived under the ownership of the Jalan-Kalrock consortium.
The resolution plan has to be put to work this month itself. Jet has a debt of over Rs 8,000 crore and needs to make repayments of up to Rs 1,700 crore by the end of March.
Old-timers say Jet boss Naresh Goyal, although still razor sharp, doesn't have the same energy he once did and this reflects in his 'baby'.
Despite adding no new aircraft, Jet Airways saw more departures during the year, it flew more people, and achieved a higher load
Jet Airways Ltd said on Friday it made a profit in the June quarter compared to a loss in the year-ago period, helped by a drop in fuel expenses.
Total revenue dropped to Rs 5,406 crore in the first quarter of the current financial year from Rs 5,508 crore in the same period a year ago
As part of cost reduction efforts, the full service carrier has asked its employees, including pilots, to take steep pay cuts
Former Director General and CEO of IATA, Giovanni Bisignani, says Jet Airways chief Naresh Goyal developed his airline's business class mock-ups in utter secrecy inside the garage of his London home.
A resurgent SpiceJet is spreading its wings and Vistara is set to challenge Jet on long-haul routes in the coming years.
Jet Airways CEO-designate Sanjiv Kapoor on Monday said the new management does not want to be "in a rush" to restart operations while asserting that the airline will be unique and different. The ownership transfer of the airline under the insolvency resolution plan is facing hurdles over differences between the winning bidder and lenders. "We don't want to be in a rush," Kapoor said.
Nikos Kardassis will become the next chief executive officer of Jet Airways, taking over the reins from Wolfgang Prock-Schauer who will step down on October 15, 2009.
The pilots are also looking to take recourse to legal steps, including recovery proceedings against the company for salary, allowances and benefits
Speaking at the 2013 CAPA Australia Pacific Aviation Summit held in Sydney, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airline's President and CEO James Hogan said, "We are delighted to welcome Air Serbia to our equity alliance, and look forward to receiving final approvals from regulators in India of our investment in Jet Airways," he added.
Jet Airways expects to return to profit in the next 18 months, following implementation of a new route network and fleet strategy and cost optimisation measures.
Jet Airways group CEO Ravi Chaturvedi has resigned. Amid difficult times for the aviation industry, Jet Airways has cut three of its biggest loss-making international routes and plans to lease four wide-body Boeing 777 aircraft, besides phasing out three Boeing 737 planes.
Private domestic airline Jet Airways on Thursday said it would start issuing electronic tickets from the next year in a bid to cut administrative costs by 50 per cent.
Among executives who have been approached are former president and CEO of IndiGo Aditya Ghosh, Wolfgang Prock Schauer, current president and Chief Operating Officer at IndiGo and Sanjay Kumar, Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer of IndiGo.
Prock-Schauer has resigned to join British Midland PLC. He will be replaced by senior vice president Nikos Kardassis.
Jet Airways is looking to lease around 20 Airbus A320 aircraft from lessors by 2024 as it aims to restart operations and fly international routes in the next one-and-a-half years. Jet's A320 aircraft fleet, according to sources, will be a mix of the Ceo and the more fuel-efficient Neo variants. These planes were originally intended for Russian airlines but could not be delivered following western sanctions on Russia over its Ukraine invasion.