A little over a year after joining the grounded airline Jet Airways as its CEO, Sanjiv Kapoor has stepped down from his position. His last day at office was today, April 28, 2023. The aviation veteran had joined Jet Airways as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) on April 4, 2022.
The consortium, including Murari Lal Jalan and the UK’s Kalrock Capital, had announced the appointment of Sanjiv Kapoor as CEO.
Kapoor said: “I am proud to have been part of a fantastic team that came together with JKC to create history by reviving an airline for the first time in India. It is not an ordinary airline we set out to revive – Jet Airways was one of the most loved airlines in India for the last 25 years it operated, before ceasing operations in 2019. I am proud of the ground-breaking business plan we put together and the progress we made, though regrettably the re-start of operations could not happen as planned in 2022. I am a firm believer in the tremendous value that can be created by full-service carriers such as Jet Airways, following bankruptcy re-structuring, and I know JKC is fully committed towards the revival of Jet Airways and wish them the very best. Consumers in a market as large as India need a choice of full-service carriers, and I look forward to seeing Jet Airways back in the skies again soon
Ankit Jalan, a representative of JKC said that it is committed to the revival of Jet Airways. “JKC will be announcing the new CEO for Jet Airways shortly. The revival of Jet Airways is through a Court Approved Process, which has taken more time than originally estimated by us,” he said.
“We are in the last leg of closing the transfer of ownership of Jet Airways to JKC, subsequent to which we will settle outstanding amounts payable to previous creditors as per our approved Resolution Plan and shall, soon thereafter, recommence the commercial operations of Jet Airways as per our re-launch plans.”
The resolution professional Ashish Chhawcharia and the representatives of the JKC remained unavailable for comment.
Senior employees, including the company secretary, account manager and chief security officer, have quit the grounded airline in the past week.
Jet’s head of flight operations, director of flight safety and director of training all resigned a few months ago.
Speaking on accepting the role of Chief Executive Officer, Kapoor had said he was looking forward to getting back to aviation, an industry he is passionate about, with Jet Airways, one of the warmest, classiest and most loved brands to have graced Indian aviation, according to him.
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“Even though Jet Airways has been out of operation for three years, it still has a large fan base of loyal customers, who miss it every day and can’t wait for it to take to the skies again. Working together with astrong team of experienced aviation professionals that is being put together by the Jalan-Kalrock Consortium, I look forward to leading the charge in rebuilding Jet Airways into the most preferred customer-oriented airline once again, a people-focused airline for the digital age,” he had said.
Kapoor grew up in Kolkata, where he did his schooling at La Martiniere. He received his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and his BA in Computer Science from Dartmouth College, USA.