SpiceJet CEO quits, expat may replace him

New Delhi-based SpiceJet may get an expatriate chief executive officer (CEO) after Sanjay Aggarwal quit the post yesterday. The resignation comes after media baron Kalanithi Maran bought a controlling 38 per cent stake in the low-cost airline.

“We have shortlisted three to four candidates. Three of them are expats and one is an Indian. Any announcement on the new CEO will not come before two months,” said sources close to SpiceJet, who did not want to be identified.

Aggarwal did not respond to calls on his mobile and messages remained unanswered. A few days earlier, senior vice-president (marketing) Anish Srikrishna had also quit.

Kishore Gupta, a board member of the airline, will be acting CEO. “He will look at the day to day operations and the decisions will be taken by the board,” said another executive, on condition of annonymity.

Aggarwal was appointed CEO of SpiceJet in October 2008, after Siddhanth Sharma resigned that July, owing to the financial condition of the airline. During his tenure, the airline made a profit for the first time. In the last financial year, SpiceJet became the only listed airline to have made a profit, of over Rs 60 crore, a first since its inception in May 2005.

Before joining SpiceJet, Aggarwal was with a US-based air travel services provider, Flight Options, with a fleet of 120 aircraft, as its Chief Operating Officer and Chief Strategy Officer. Prior to that, he was a senior director of Marriott International.

Maran had, last month, announced the acquisition of a 38 per cent stake in SpiceJet and made an open offer to buy another 20 per cent from shareholders of the airline, which has a fleet of 21 Boeing 737 aircraft operating 137 daily flights to 19 cities in the country. The carrier recently won rights to fly to destinations in Bangladesh, Nepal and the Maldives.