<b>BS People:</b> Sanjay Aggarwal

Sky marshal

The moment Sanjay Aggarwal saw the crumbs of stale bread on his lap, he knew things had to change at SpiceJet. But it wasn’t just the in-flight meal on one of his first flights aboard the low-cost carrier after taking charge as CEO in October 2008 that needed fixing. Since then, he burnished the airline’s image, ramped up routes and improved efficiency down the line. He also made sure better food was sold on board and served in sturdier packaging.

Under the 42-year-old Aggarwal, SpiceJet grew from 94 flights daily to 16 cities with 15 Boeing 737 aircraft to 137 flights to 19 cities with 21 737s. The Gurgaon-based carrier made a profit last financial year — the first ever since its inception in 2005 — and revenues from in-flight sales grew 200 per cent. The achievement is all the more creditable given the dismal state of the recession-hit industry as a whole.

With Aggarwal’s success at SpiceJet, it’s hardly surprising that the MS from Virginia Polytechnic was snapped up last week by Vijay Mallya-owned Kingfisher Airlines to be CEO. But the job of bailing out the bleeding carrier will be even tougher. The full-cost airline has a huge debt of Rs 7,413 crore (as of December 2009) on its books. For the financial year ended March 2009, Kingfisher’s net loss was Rs 1,647.2 crore. It reported a further net loss of Rs 187 crore in the first quarter of the current financial year. Just one look at the balance sheet, and Aggarwal must surely have had another breadcrumb moment.