GoAir management continues to split

As COVID-19 hit aviation sector hard, GoAir was on cash and carry mode under the direction of AAI. Adversely, the top-level managers continue to quit the airlines, revealing chaos and confusion within the company

New Delhi: Split between the Wadia Group-controlled budget carrier GoAir and senior management continues as airlines' chief commercial officer Praveen Iyer discontinued his services, sources familiar with the development told ETV Bharat.

As per the sources, around half-a-dozen senior officials have resigned from the company, which also includes the then CEO Vinay Dube, head of flight operations Nikhil Ved, senior GM flight operations Manoj Arora. Praveen Iyer had joined the airline in February and before that, he was working with the Jet Airways as an executive. He had joined GoAir just a week after Vinay Dube, Jet's previous CEO, took over as the chief of the Wadia group-owned low fare carrier.

GoAir's majority of the employees are on leave without pay and the airlines in India have taken cost-cutting measures by announcing pay cuts, LWP and firing of employees in order to conserve cash flow. GoAir did not respond when contacted by ETV Bharat.

Read:GoAir to add over 100 new domestic flights from today

Speaking on the back to back high profile exits from the airline, Mark D Martin, founder and CEO of Martin Consulting said, "GoAir is getting very serious and it is regaining control of the entire organisation people and it is a positive sign. The splits that have happened now was expected from the recent low performance."

"I think a complete revamp in GoAir is underway and it is a positive sign because the leadership of GoAir is with Kaushik Khona and he is a strict taskmaster who believes in getting the job done," he opined. Martin said one of the biggest problems of GoAir is that they have had a lot of flamboyant show-off CEOs with little or no results except spend company money in marketing - with zero effective returns.

The aviation sector has been hit hard due to the travel restrictions imposed in India and other countries in view of the coronavirus pandemic. Last month, GoAir was put on cash and carry mode by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) on its airports because of non-payment of dues. According to the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation data, GoAir had reported 61 per cent passenger load factor and 4.7 per cent market share in August.