'We are here to help, not brag'

Garry Kingshott, CEO, JetLite, has a tough job at hand. He is in charge of resurrecting Air Sahara, an airline that was in ruins, with grounded aircraft, mounting losses and demoralised employees. Sitting in a modest office on a September afternoon, he spoke about the challenges that lay ahead for him and the airline.

On his journey from Australia to India

India is an incredible economy. Jet’s amazing vision and ambition made a compelling story.

On his India stay

Mumbai has friendly people, fantastic bars and restaurants and great life. What I still cannot come to terms with is the number of people. No matter at what time or which place, there are people always there.

Oh yes, I am not used to having a driver and am used to cooking my dinner. I have got my local driving licence. I have a bike.

Any surprises for an expat

Even a basic plumbing job would take three visits to fix. Everything takes far longer than I expect it to. Earlier, I thought it was a conspiracy against me. Now I know it is more a way people work. There’s a lack of urgency in everything. I am surprised as this is a country in a hurry otherwise.

On working with Jet Airways

I am impressed by the talent and sheer intellectual horsepower there. Indian management often don’t know how smart they are.

On his new role as JetLite CEO

One afternoon in April, Naresh Goyal called me to say I have to head JetLite. I am here to work — for me it’s just another challenge. Running a business wasn’t an issue. “At the worst,” I said “you may fail”, but I wanted to go and try.

On warming up to the CEO’s job

I wrote the business plan on one sheet of paper. If you can simplify the company’s vision to one sheet of paper — what your goals are, how to deliver those goals and how are you going to measure — that clarity of thought was very important.

On the issues at Air Sahara, now JetLite

It was a mess here. The biggest being — out of 24 aircrafts only 15 were in the air. The airline was losing $10 million every month.

On the cultural issues in the acquisition

Like any merger, employees have this sense of loyalty to former employer. There was also this feeling about we being conquering heroes. I made it clear from day one – we are here to help, not brag. Whatever happened at Sahara – not their fault. They lacked a good leader and vision.

On Sahara vs Jet culture

Sahara culture is almost very patriarchal. Staff had got out of the business of decision making. Not just staff, even the senior management was reluctant to say anything. Fiscal accountability was missing.

New airline on an old body. Will it work?

Yes, almost all staff are old. But we had the luxury of choosing 2,300 staff out of 4,500 over 90 days while they were at work. We also had sufficient time to show them who we were. Whoever are around they chose to be with us. Attrition isn’t an issue — I can say we have lower attrition than Jet.

On handling difficult people issues

I have a degree of empathy. One of the key issues is to communicate and I tried hard to do that. But probably I didn’t do enough of it. I do have town hall meetings. I chat up with them whenever I meet them to understand them better. The biggest issue in any M&A is the uncertainty. That’s the reason we tried to expedite the recruitment.

On why low-cost model for JetLite

Currently, low-cost airlines are growing at 25% plus and it has 40% share in the total pie. Full service carriers are growing at 12-15% and has 60%. We see that 40:60 ratio reversing soon. Strategically it makes sense for Jet to be present in that segment.

On Jet’s involvement with JetLite

Rajiv Gupta, COO, JetLite, has been working with Naresh Goyal for 24-25 years. When we need help, we ask for help. We are trying to use our synergies wherever we can — call centres, ground handling, aircraft maintenance etc.

Your vision for JetLite

We will be running the airline profitably by the end of this financial year.