Jet Airways former executive director Saroj Datta dies

It was he who shaped the network and fleet strategy at Jet Airways, drawing from his four-decade experience in aviation sector

Jet Airways former executive director Saroj K. Datta died in Mumbai on Wednesday. Datta was a part of core team which launched the airline in 1993 and was its executive director till his retirement in 2011.

Datta (79) shaped the network and fleet strategy at Jet Airways, drawing from his four-decade experience in aviation sector. He also worked on airline's initial public offering (IPO) in 2005 and the acquisition of Air Sahara in 2007 and was a mentor to junior colleagues.



While Jet Airways has always been led by a foreign chief executive officer, Datta was often the man working behind the scene in crucial decisions. Whether it was aircraft acquisitions, leases, strategic plans or even industrial relations Datta was involved in all of them.

Datta, or SKD to his colleagues worked as deputy director in network planning and international relations in Air India before joining Kuwait Airways in 1987. He returned to India after the first Gulf War in 1991 and joined Naresh Goyal to launch the airline. While in Air India, he had been involved in network planning and negotiating air service agreements and and that experience came useful.

At Goyal's office Datta teamed up with his former colleague B P Baliga, Air India's ex-engineering head, Captain Robin Williams, Premilla Kanga and others to launch Jet Airways. Jet first began as an air taxi service and scheduled service commenced in May 1993.

" He was a father figure in Jet Airways and mentor to many of us. I had opportunity to work closely with him during the IPO," recalled airline's former investor relations head K G Vishwanath.

Datta retired from the airline in 2011 after the completion of his contract. Back then he denied leaving the airline due to health reasons.

"Leaving a place you worked for 20 years is painful. It is painful to leave those colleagues with whom I have been working many years. Even the thought of not seeing the place where you have been for so many years is painful," Datta had said on leaving Jet Airways.

Post retirement Datta partnered Vishwanath and Sudheer Raghavan, Jet's former chief commercial officer in starting an aviation consultancy.