The day after Jet Airways chief financial officer Amit Agarwal resigned, the grounded Indian low-cost carrier’s chief operating officer, Vinay Dube has also resigned, for what has been stated as “personal reasons”. Agarwal’s resignation was effective from May 13, while Dube’s resignation is effective immediately, as of May 14. Dube joined jet Airways in 2017, having worked at Delta Airlines, Sabre Inc and American Airlines in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
“We wish to inform that Vinay Dube, chief executive officer has resigned from services of the company with immediate effect due to personal reasons,” Jet Airways said in a regulatory filing Tuesday. Over the last month the majority of board members of the carrier have also resigned.
Jet Airways has been grounded since April 17 after a consortium of lenders, led by the State Bank of India (SBI), refused to extend emergency funding. However, the bank confirmed at the end of last week that having set a deadline of 1230 GMT on Friday to receive offers for the stricken carrier, there has been strong interest. Current minority investor Etihad has expressed a willingness to invest further in Jet Airways, subject to certain conditions, but an SBI spokesperson made it clear they “cannot be expected to be the sole investor” and “additional suitable investors would need to provide the majority of Jet Airways’ required recapitalization.”
Etihad was among four investors that submitted initial bids for the airline last month. The others were private equity firms TPG Capital and Indigo Partners and Indian wealth fund National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF). SBI has also received two unsolicited, non-binding bids for Jet, the bank’s Chairman Rajnish Kumar told reporters, after a news conference on Friday, adding it had no plans at this time to drag the airline into a bankruptcy process
