Halfway into the 90-minute flight from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City, a grey-haired passenger disappears into the cockpit, emerging only after the plane is safely on the ground. It's one of the perks of being the boss of the airline, but the charming and humble Naresh Goyal doesn't make a big deal of it.
"It was a smooth landing and the city looks beautiful," the 64-year-old founder of Jet Airways tells his fellow passengers as he returns to the cabin. For one of India's leading airlines, the inaugural flight between two major Asean cities was another milestone in a steady expansion.
Travel and airlines have been a passion for the Punjab-born Mr Goyal since he began his working life. Nor was he a stranger to hard work, given the family's circumstances. His father, a prosperous jeweller, fell on hard times and the family's house and belongings were auctioned. At age 11, Naresh found himself living in his maternal uncle's house. However, he took the hard times in stride and went on to complete a bachelor's degree in commerce at age 18.
Young Naresh also got his first job at 18, working as a cashier with his uncle's travel agency. Having nowhere to go after the family house was auctioned, he used to sleep in the shophouse by night and work by day.
At the age of 20, he was appointed PR manager for an Iraqi airline, and he followed this with stints at other carriers including Royal Jordanian Airlines and Philippine Airlines.
After years of working he got a break when he had a chance to meet the chairman of Lebanese International Airlines (Carlos Arida) and the chairman of Royal Jordanian Airlines (Ali Ghandour) who were looking at the time to expand their presence in the Far East.
Though he had been earning a mere 300 rupees a month for about seven years, Mr Goyal finally gathered the courage to open his own travel agency called JetAir, with money borrowed from his mother. Initially he represented some European airlines and Asian carriers such as Cathay Pacific.
That was the beginning, and the rest is history. When the Indian government opened up its heavily protected skies to allow private aviation companies to operate, Mr Goyal took the plunge and launched an air taxi operation on April 1, 1992. The first commercial flight took place on May 5, 1993.
"I remember May 5, 1993 as if it were yesterday," he said in a recent chat with Asia Focus. "In 1991, as part of the ongoing diversification of our business activities, we took advantage of the opening of the Indian economy and the announcement of the Open Skies Policy by the government of India to set up Jet Airways for operation as a scheduled air taxi operator on domestic sectors in India."
To mark the momentous occasion, he recalls with pride, the guest list included the presence of JRD Tata, the pioneer of commercial aviation in India and a local business legend. Mr Tata died later that year.
Leading an airline in those days was not an easy task since "open skies" was little more than a slogan as far as the Delhi government was concerned. It still kept many restrictions in place to keep the private airlines from being able to operate easily and to protect the lumbering state incumbents. But Mr Goyal and others managed to work their way around these restrictions and ended up becoming direct competitors to the national champion Air India. Jet Airways went public in 2005, helping to make Mr Goyal a billionaire.
It has been just 21 years since the first flight took off and Jet Airways today has a fleet of 115 aircraft serving 75 destinations spanning the length and breath of India and beyond. It offers easy convenient connections on its domestic network to 51 destinations across India, with more than 450 daily domestic flights.
The airline's global footprint includes Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Bangkok, Brussels, Colombo, Dammam (Saudi Arabia), Dhaka, Doha, Dubai, Hong Kong, Jeddah, Kathmandu, Kuwait, London (Heathrow), Muscat, New York (Newark), Paris, Riyadh, Sharjah, Singapore and Toronto — and now Ho Chi Minh City.
As well, travellers have access to 22 international destinations on Jet Airways' network and connections with 135 destinations across the world through its strategic partner, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways. Etihad acquired a 24% equity stake in Jet Airways in 2013.
While selling a large shareholding to an outsider is never easy for an entrepreneur, analysts say Mr Goyal felt compelled to act in order to survive the intense competition that was killing the airline industry in India at the time.
The deal helped Jet avoid the fate of peers such as Kingfisher, a former high flyer that is now suspended, and Spice Jet, which market watchers said last week was in danger of going belly-up.
"This partnership will become the bedrock for launching Jet Airways to the next level in terms of global reach," Mr Goyal said when asked how he felt about having to sell a stake in the company he founded.
Etihad Airways is also making some strategic decisions that are finally helping Jet Airways become profitable. One was to make Jet a full-service airline, effective from Dec 1, so that it is no longer in direct competition with the low-cost carriers in India.
TURNAROUND STORY
For the expected climb to long-awaited profitability, one has to credit the growth of the market overall and the change of strategy of the airline, not to mention the decline in oil prices and the weakening of some of Jet's competitors. Jet has had only one profitable year out of the last seven.
Most analysts say the company's performance has been on a gradual path of improvement as it has been focusing on operating more planes on international routes.
According to latest data available, international routes accounted for 63% of Jet Airways' total revenues, which was a rise of 22% year-on-year. This compared to an increase of just 6% in domestic segment revenue for the same period.
Although the airline is still not in the black, it managed to pare its losses in the quarter ended Sept 30 to 430 million rupees from 9.9 billion a year earlier. It has embarked on a three-year turnaround plan with the ultimate aim to be among the top five airlines in the world, something of a tall order but then Etihad has been ranked at that level recently.
"We currently fly to Hong Kong, Bangkok and Singapore and have recently started operations to Ho Chi Minh City. We will always explore several opportunities to expand our network and reach," said Mr Goyal, adding that as India's trade and tourism develops, the airline will look at starting new flights or adding additional frequencies. Bangkok is being considered as a regional hub for the airline as it taps the Southeast Asian market.
The soft-spoken Mr Goyal, who tries to talk to every passenger sitting near him to get feedback on the airline and its operations, says he wants Jet to be among the best and to tap the growing air travel business in India.
"Over the next five years we aim to connect growing metros like Lucknow, Goa and Ahmedabad to international destinations over our [Etihad] gateway of Abu Dhabi," he said.
Ultimately, Jet Airways plans to operate from 23 cities in India to connect to 135 Gulf destinations via Abu Dhabi with Etihad.
The airline recently achieved the milestone of becoming India's first private carrier to operate more than 50 daily flights to multiple destinations in the Gulf, making Jet the largest operator between India and the region.
Jet Airways is also the only airline to operate two services daily to Singapore from Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.
While he is no longer involved in the day-to-day management of the airline, Mr Goyal continues to exert an extensive influence over the decision-making process and the direction of the business. He is reluctant to talk about succession plans for the airline, which he believes is still in its infancy stage in terms of growth potential in markets such as India.
"India is a very big market and with the new government and new policies getting into place, India will turn out to be a major destination for global players," he said. "In fact, India along with China is one of the fastest growing international [aviation] markets in the world.
"It currently stands at more than 40 million passengers per year and is growing at the rate of 10 to 12 percent, and the strong cultural and ethnic affinity displayed by the growing Indian diaspora worldwide results in growing travel back and forth," he said.
"Hence I see no letup as far as aviation is concerned. Jet Airways is now more focussed on deploying the capacity we need to operate in a more consolidated manner — key markets, frequency growth and network feed."