Monday, October 15, 2012

No ‘auto pilot’ can work here

Stability at the top management level is the need of the hour for Jet Airways in the financial slump

Turbulent weather, expert pilots needed, and only the best will do. Considering that the Indian aviation sector is going through one of its most critical and painful periods, the change of guard at the helm of Jet Airways is quite significant. A major domestic player of the Indian aviation sector, Jet Airways has recently witnessed a change of guards at the top of its management. And looking at the turbulence in the sector thanks to declining air traffic, mounting input cost et al leading to the bleeding bottom-lines and uninspirational top lines, it becomes all the more important to ensure that the baton is now given in safe hands.

Naresh Goyal’s private carrier Jet Airways’ group CEO Ravi Chaturvedi has put down his papers after serving the airline for only four months (Chaturvedi had joined Jet Airways in October last year after serving FMCG major Procter & Gamble). It cannot be more wrongly timed as the player, who was once the largest private carrier in the market (dethroned by Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines), is reeling with the recent Rs.2.14 billion losses in the quarter ended December 2008. This forced the airline major to ask its senior officials to accept salary cuts. It was also forced to close down services to three of its major loss-making international routes (Amritsar-London-Amritsar, Bombay-Shanghai-San Francisco and Bangalore-Brussels) and has also unveiled plans to lease four wide-body Boeing 777 aircraft, coupled with phasing out of three Boeing 737 planes. Were these the actual reasons behind Chaturvedi stepping down from the helm? “The current financial standing of the company has got nothing to do with the resignation of Jet Airways group CEO Ravi Chaturvedi. He has resigned from the company, citing personal reasons. Chaturvedi and his family desire to return to the US,” clears a spoke-person of Jet Airways to B&E.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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