Even as the cloud of uncertainty hangs over Jet Airways' Executive Director Saroj Datta's future in the airline, the company announced on Tuesday the resignation of its Senior Vice-President N Hariharan and Vice-President (flight operations) Ritzerwan Bin Rashid.
Hariharan was part of the senior management team and had joined Jet in 2006. His resignation came into effect on April 29 and he consequently joined GVK-led Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) which is developing the Mumbai airport.
Rashid's resignation came into effect on May 15 2008. Rashid has been replaced by Declan Connolly.
According to sources, A S Bedi, general manager (security) and S Bandula, senior general manager (in flight services) are among the others who have put in their papers as well. Carl Saldanha, Jet's chief financial officer, quit in February this year.
Jet's core team has seen a steady rise in resignations over the last year and a half, many of them joining rival full service carrier Kingfisher. Prominent among those who left the company are Peter Luethi (who was chief operating officer), V Raja (vice-president - Asia Pacific), Rajesh Verma (vice-president of customer and in-flight services), and Nandini Verma (vice-president corporate affairs), Murali Ramachandran (senior general manager - airport services) and Raja Parthasarathy (executive vice-president - finance).
Interestingly, even as these people left, Jet has hired around 14 executives at salaries 50 per cent more than their local counterparts. Prominent among them are names like Vice-President (Commercial) Sudheer Raghavan and Vice-President (overseas operations) Gerry Oh, both ex-Singapore Airlines executives, and Abdulrahman Albusaidy, executive vice-president (operations and engineering), who was earlier with Oman Air.
Sources close to the development said that the major hike in salaries for expats was a cause for the attrition of most Indian executives from the management team.