June 12, 2013 / 19:02 IST
Moneycontrol Bureau
When Nikos Kardassis took over reins of
Jet Airways from Wolfgang Prockshaeur on October 15 2009, he had a daunting task of piloting the airline through an economic downturn.
A few day after he took over as the CEO of the country's largest airline, the firm posted Rs 406.7 crore loss for the September quarter of FY2010 on a general slowdown along with a week-long pilots strike that resulted in revenue loss of atleast USD 16 million on cancellation of over 1200 domestic and international flights.
Read This: Jet Airways CEO Nikos Kardassis resignsKardassis, the then new Greek-American CEO who began his second stint with Jet Air around four years ago, had earlier served the airline in 1994-1999 as senior vice-president, the Americas.
This time around his responsibilities were wider and critical including arresting declining revenues, restructuring debt of over Rs 13,000 crore and optimal use of fleet along with route rationalisation.
In the meanwhile, on the back of recovery in passenger demand, the airline returned to black with Rs 105 crore profit in Q3FY2010 when compared with Rs 214 crore loss year-on-year.
Old timers who have worked with Kardassis say that he was instrumental in leasing three B777-300 aircraft to Thai Airways for three years to not only improve cash flow but to also re-ploy excess capacity. His 20 years experience as business head at companies like Merill Lynch, General Electric amongst others certainly helped him steer the airline through thick and thin.
Jet Airways also retained its number one position with around 27-28 percent market share throughout 2010 by curtailing loss making routes and enhancing capacity on profitable destinations.
In press statement released month-on-month, the erstwhile CEO never forgot to mention initiatives like network planning, competitive fare schemes, firm business strategies that helped the company sustain number one position.
However in 2011, Jet Air's low fare arm JetLite gave in to domestic pressures and reported a pre-tax loss of Rs 5.2 crore in Q1FY12, down from a profit of Rs 4.9 crore year-on-year. Other performance metrics also showed a general negative trend when compared with low fare carriers like SpiceJet and IndiGo.
In July 2011, the airline sounded off its plan to merge JetKonnect and JetLite, both low cost brands of the airline. This would not only consolidate low cost presence of the airline, but would also mitigate confusion amongst customers, believed Kardassis who oversaw the entire process of repositioning of low fare brand
After six months of making public company plan to have on strong low fare brand, JetLite was done away with and JetKonnect came into existence as a full fledged low fare subsidiary with 15 percent lower fares than what parent Jet Air offered.
Two major developments in 2012 brought some relief to the aviation industry as a whole. First: the government agreed to long term industry demand of directly importing aviation fuel to cut costs. Second: airlines were given a nod for 49 percent foreign direct investment (FDI).
Post the FDI announcement, Jet is the only airline that has managed to offload 24 percent stake to Etihad which will bring in atleast two members on board.
Reasons for Kardassis' resignation is not known, but he intends to relocate back to his family. His contributions in consolidating operations and extending its global reach have been invaluable. Jet Air team perhaps owes great thanks for his tireless efforts on behalf of the organization during his tenure as CEO.
shaheen.mansuri@network18online.com 
