Sanjiv Kapoor resigns as Vistara Chief Commercial Officer

NEW DELHI: In a top-level move at Vistara, its chief commercial officer Sanjiv Kapoor has resigned from the airline and December 31, 2019, will be his last day at the airline.

Confirming the resignation, Vistara said that Vinod Kannan will take over his responsibilities at the airline.

“Vistara’s Chief Commercial Officer, Sanjiv Kapoor, resigned from his position due to personal reasons, and will be discharging his official duties on 31 December 2019. The airline’s Chief Strategy Officer, Vinod Kannan, will take over as the Chief Commercial Officer, subsequently,” Vistara spokesperson said in a statement.

Kapoor resignation will be the second top-level resignations in the aviation sector with AirAsia India’s chief commercial officer Sanjay Kumar, another aviation veteran, resigning from AirAsia India.

In a letter to employees, seen by ET, Kapoor has said that the reasons for his decision to quit are personal.

“However, sadly, all good things must come to an end, and the time has come to think of the last decade or so of my professional working life with my head and not just with my heart, balancing both personal and professional goals. My daughter is in college in the US and my son will join soon, and I have entered the last dozen years or so of my working life, a stage where I need to start thinking more about longer-term goals and post-retirement plans. Therefore, with a heavy heart, I have decided the time has come for me to move on from Vistara,” his email to employees read.

Kapoor four-year stint at Vistara saw the airline grow from 9 aircraft and 45 flights a day to 39 aircraft and over 200 flights a day and expanding from 12 stations to 34, including the launch of international operations.

Prior to joining Vistara, Kapoor was with SpiceJet during its crisis phase as well as ownership change from Sun-group owner Marans to Ajay Singh.

In his missive, Sanjiv has also mentioned the struggling phase at SpiceJet and has credited the then owners (Marans) for not stopping payment of salaries despite the financial trouble.

“Throughout the tough period when we were struggling for survival (at SpiceJet) due to a cash crunch, the erstwhile promoters told me “Sanjiv – whatever you do, please make sure the staff are paid. Return aircraft if you must but pay the staff”. It is this that made the difference and saw SpiceJet resume ops after suspending them for a day – we could resume because the staff, many of whom had been abused and manhandled the previous day, returned to work the next day. Because they never gave up hope!,” the email reads.