‘Jet Airways 2.0’ to have new business model, ‘not a copy paste’: CEO

The relaunch of India’s Jet Airways, which faced legal hurdles in recent months, is still in progress, and will see the airline take a “new approach” to its business model. Speaking at the CAPA India Aviation Summit 2023 held in Delhi, Sanjiv Kapoor, the airline’s CEO-designate, says the relaunched business strategy “will not be a copy paste” from the old airline, which collapsed in 2019 as the country’s largest privately-owned carrier. “There’s going to be a new approach to fleet… a new approach to revenue management, a new approach to customers, a new approach to IT and digital and how it benefits the end-users,” says Kapoor, an industry veteran who previously held senior leadership roles in compatriots SpiceJet and Vistara. He declines to elaborate further, but stresses that the relaunched carrier - which he calls ‘Jet 2.0’ - will learn from the lessons of its failed predecessor. A debt-laden Jet Airways collapsed in 2019 after running out of cash. A resolution plan from new owners Murari Lal Jalan and Kalrock Capital received court approval in June 2021, paving the way for the airline’s revival. The full-service airline received its air operator certificate from Indian regulators in May 2022, and had previously stated its plans to relaunch in the third-quarter of 2022. However, by November the airline had yet to take off, and reports emerged of a legal wrangle between the airline’s new owners and creditors over the revival plan - a move that could derail Jet’s return. <br/>