In a surprising move today, Vistara’s Chief Commercial Officer Sanjiv Kapoor notified everyone of his plans to move on from the airline. December 31, 2019, will be his last day at the airline.

Sanjiv Kapoor had come to Vistara from SpiceJet just about four years ago in the position of the Chief Strategy & Commercial Officer, and apart from being the CSCO of the airline, also mainly became the public face of the carrier with him being very accessible to customers on Twitter.

In his earlier role at SpiceJet, and even here, he brought a very human face to aviation, which otherwise is considered to be a very faceless industry. His recent tweet, taking sides with a crewmember who someone on Twitter randomly clicked a picture of in an airport lounge, got him praise from across the globe.

Thank you all for your positive and supportive comments, it means a lot to us and to all crew everywhere. To those asking why this crew was napping in the lounge: she was on a break between flights, and the lounge was specifically provided for the crew to rest in. Thank you.

— Sanjiv Kapoor (@TheSanjivKapoor) December 6, 2019

Sanjeev Kapoor’s role was divided up into two as the airline brought on board Vinod Kannan from the Singapore Airlines side of the business to run strategy for the airline while he focussed on the Commercial side of the company, including Revenue Management.

Sanjiv Kapoor has stated that he is moving on for personal reasons. In his farewell message to the airline’s staff, he wrote,

I have entered the last dozen years or so of my working life, a stage where I need to start thinking more about longer-term goals and post-retirement plans.

While Sanjiv Kapoor would move on, there are many a project which he will still leave behind as his legacy. For instance, he was deeply involved in the design of the passenger experience of the Boeing 787s and A321neos of the airline, which the airline will use to fly to newer destinations such as London and Tokyo in the coming year.

The @airvistara team in Seattle for the Boeing 787-9 ITCM. This is where we decide the product and feature options for the aircraft. Vistara will take delivery of the first 787 aircraft in early 2020. pic.twitter.com/lZEFZvPPoK

— Sanjiv Kapoor (@TheSanjivKapoor) October 1, 2018

Co-incidentally, the Indian aviation industry lost another CCO just this month, with Sanjay Kumar moving on from Air Asia India just this month itself.