The Wadia group-promoted budget airline, GoAir, has reshuffled its top management.
After hiring former Spice Jet CEO Mark Winders as executive director, the no-frill airliner has appointed another Spice Jet top honcho, GP Gupta as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
Gupta was Vice President, Finance, for Spice Jet. GoAir said the appointment was in line with its ongoing business expansion plans. The low-cost airliner has promoted its Vice President (Engineering) Meg Fook Meng as the Chief Operational Officer.
The company is also hiring a Chief Commercial Operator to fill the void created by Raj Halve, who had resigned recently. Earlier, after the intervention of Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, Indian carriers had agreed not to hire officials from rival firms due to the acute shortage of crew and pilots. But this does not include senior management officials.
The top management reshuffle is part of the company's expansion plans as the start-up airline is planning to ramp up its operations in an increasingly crowded domestic aviation market.
GoAir, currently, operates 7 Airbus A320 aircraft connecting 13 cities with 385 weekly flights. The company has placed a $1.5 billion deal with Airbus to acquire ten A320 airplanes. The airline recently completed one year of operation and has flown over a million passengers since commencement of flights in November 2005, with over 4 per cent market share.
Top aircraft makers Boeing and Airbus had recently changed their forecasts for the Indian civil aviation industry. Airbus expects a 8 per cent growth in India, led by the travel and freight sectors and expects Indian firms over the next 20 years will place orders for 1,100 passenger and freighters valued at about $105 billion.
