While this week Ilker Ayci turned down the opportunity to be the top boss at Air India, another airline filled up an important position working towards a restart. Jet Airways has been preparing for a relaunch since the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) gave them the go-ahead to launch under a new owner. The airline has now announced the appointment of Sanjiv Kapoor as the Chief Executive Officer.
For the longest time, apart from filing for an extension with the NCLT, not much was being heard from the Jalan Kalrock Consortium, which emerged as the successful designate-owner of the airline. In December 2021, Jet Airways intimated the NCLT of its intention to set December 22, 2021, as the “effective date” of the Approved Resolution Plan to initiate the payments owed to stakeholders including ex-employees, workmen, ticket claimants and lenders of Jet Airways. That meant they would pay the dues as per the approved formula within 180 days of the effective date.
Things started moving for airline from year 2022
The airline’s new owners were not infusing the committed funds in the airline as they waited for the airport slots to be returned to Jet Airways, and the Air Operators Certificate to be resurrected. However, in 2022, things have changed and a lot has been happening. Jet Airways has appointed a lot of people to be based in Gurugram, which will be the new headquarters of the airline.
In February 2022, they appointed Vipula Gunatilleka as the Chief Financial Officer of the airline. Gunatilleka was the CEO of Sri Lankan Airlines until January 2022. He re-structured Sri Lankan Airlines and in less than two years after assuming the duties as the CEO, the airline recorded positive EBITDA/Cash Flow.
New CEO, aviation veteran
Subsequently, the announcement Sanjiv Kapoor as CEO has been made. Kapoor has vast management experience in aviation across the globe, including NorthWest Airlines, Bain & Co.’s Aviation practice, Temasek and GMG Airlines before arriving on the scene in Indian aviation in 2013. He worked as the Chief Operating Officer at SpiceJet before moving to the position of Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer at Vistara where he stayed till 2019.
At Vistara, he built on the good work of the launch team to redefine the customer standards of the airline and also became the face of the airline, being responsive to customers and solving their customer service issues on social media.
Task ahead for Kapoor, and Jet Airways
At Jet Airways, his task will be cut out. In signing up to reinstate Jet Airways, the Jalan Kalrock consortium is banking on the goodwill that the airline generated since 2014, and loyal customers miss the Jet Airways experience to date. So expectations from the new management team will be high.
The first steps towards the revival of Jet Airways will include the DGCA proving flight, which is reportedly going to be conducted sometime in March 2022. This will set the path towards receiving the AOC which is a condition for the operation of any airline.
The airline will also have to sign up for slots with various airports in India, and get ready with the available equipment (a few 737 and larger 777/A330 aircraft) to launch domestic operations in India. This sounds simple, but a lot of work is needed. Many of these aircraft have been spotted across airports in India with their paint fading away and some engines missing. To bring them back to shape will be an enormous task in itself.
Will new Jet Airways be full-service or no-frills carrier?
The management team will also have to work on the hiring of staff such as pilots and cabin crew and designing the service standards at the airline. We still don’t know if the new Jet Airways will continue to be a full-service carrier or a no-frills carrier. So I would expect the new management to have a hand in deciding which way this will go.
A couple of other open issues will need to be closed sooner than later. While Boeing struck Jet Airways orders off its books for the 737 MAX aircraft, there are still some new aircraft in Jet Airways' livery awaiting delivery at Boeing’s facilities in Washington, USA. Jet Airways would most probably want to revive the order because of the familiarity of the team with the 737 equipment, and also shorter delivery timelines compared to the Airbus A320 family which has a long waiting period for now.
A second one will be more customer-facing. Jet Airways’ widely loved loyalty programme JetPrivilege, which was rebranded to InterMiles, will have to be brought back into the fold of the airline. At the moment, the programme is majorly owned by Etihad and will be of importance to the airline as it tries to resurrect itself, given they are banking on the loyal customer base of Jet Airways to come back to the airline.
With Akasa Air in the wings, the renewed vigour at Air India and now with the revival of Jet Airways, it sure will be interesting to see the fight for market share amongst the new players, as well as IndiGo bracing for a fight it has on its hands. Sanjiv Kapoor and his colleagues will keep busy as they prepare for the return of Jet Airways, which could be the proverbial rise of the phoenix.
(Ajay Awtaney writes about Indian Aviation on livefromalounge.com and tweets from @LiveFromALounge)
