Drop in earnings, exit of top executives hit aviation

Mumbai: In the past 15 months, the steep decline in earnings for India’s airlines has been matched only by a steady exodus of senior executives from domestic aviation companies.
That trend was highlighted when Wolfgang Prock-Schauer quit as chief executive of Jet Airways (India) Ltd, the country’s largest private carrier by passengers, on 15 October to move to Europe on a new assignment.
Other recent senior executives’ exits in the sector are JetLite (India) Ltd’s chief operating officer Patrick Rastov, and three vice-presidents at Kingfisher Airlines Ltd—Ratan Ratnakar (revenue optimization), Vikram Malhotra (marketing) and Siva Ramachandran (global sales).
“The talent drain of the Indian airline industry is a phenomenon that came to the fore in the last 12-15 months with an element of panic among employees,” said Ganesh Shermon, partner and country head of people and change practice at KPMG Advisory Services, an audit and consulting firm. “With this, the aviation industry is currently undergoing a degree of turbulence. The airline industry is notorious for not learning from other industries.”
Many of these executives are, in fact, not just exiting from the airlines but the sector itself. Kingfisher’s Malhotra, for example, is joining Balaji Motion Pictures Ltd and in the past, Jet’s A.S. Bedi (general manager, security), quit to join Wal-Mart India Technical and Consulting Pvt. Ltd, which advises US discount chain Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s retail joint venture in India with Bharti Enterprises Ltd.
21/10/09 P R Sanjai/Live Mint

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Oct 2009