Vistara COO Sanjiv Kapoor steps down citing personal reasons

Vistara's Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) Sanjiv Kapoor has resigned from the post, the airline said in a statement on Monday. The company said that Kapoor had stepped down from his post last month. His last working day with the airline will be December 31. In a statement, Vistara said that Kapoor had resigned due to personal reasons. The airline's Chief Strategy Officer Vinod Kannan will take over as the CCO.

Vistara is a joint venture

"As a part of the transition process since Kapoor's resignation, some of his portfolios had been moved under Kannan's leadership, while some are still in the movement process," said the company. Vistara is a joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines. Tata Sons holds a 51 per cent stake whereas Singapore Airlines owns the remaining 49 per cent stake. The change of guard at the full-service airline Vistara comes just a day after the announcement of Ankur Garg as CCO at Tata Group’s other airline joint venture, AirAsia India. In AirAsia India too, Tata Sons owns 51 per cent stake, while the Malaysian company AirAsia Berhad holds 49 per cent.

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“Mr Kapoor’s dedication and contributions to Vistara in the past four years have been well appreciated. The management of Vistara respects his decision and wishes him the very best,” said a Vistara spokesperson. In 2018, when the Indian aviation industry was going through a phase of profitless growth—where passenger traffic was rising only because airfares were low—Kapoor was the only aviation executive to publicly say, “Airfares are so low that we are stealing people out of buses and taxis at fares that simply don’t cover costs.”

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Kapoor had joined Vistara in March 2016 after his stint as the Chief Operating Officer at SpiceJet. During his time with SpiceJet, the Maran family gave up the ownership of the company and the present chief Ajay Singh took over. Kapoor began his journey in the aviation industry with Northwest Airlines in the United States back in 1997. He has also worked with Bain and Company and Temasek Holdings. Kapoor said in his resignation letter that he was fascinated with aviation industry since his childhood and he used to draw aircraft with wheels when he was in Class 1. He then used to erase the wheels after imagining the aircraft has taken off. 

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