Rejig of Oyo brass: Aditya Ghosh joins board, Rohit Kapoor becomes CEO

Oyo has recently undergone large-scale corporate restructuring, setting up several subsidiaries and bifurcating operations globally

Just a little over a year after being named chief executive officer (CEO), Oyo Hotels & Homes’ top boss Aditya Ghosh will move to a board position at the company, handing over the reins to Rohit Kapoor, the CEO of Oyo’s new real estate business.

The move comes at a time when Oyo has started talking of its initial public offering plans and has just been valued at over $10 billion. In a letter to employees earlier on Monday, Ghosh outlined a broad strategy he will follow in his new role.

Ghosh, who joined Oyo from IndiGo Airlines where he was president, said in an internal email he would take over his new role at Oyo “from January 1… In my new role at the board, I will provide oversight as Oyo evolves into a truly global high performing company that scales sustainably on the path to profitability with higher expectations from consumers, asset owners, investors, and employees. I intend to actively focus on five key areas, namely safety and security, customer experience, corporate governance, revenue management, and stakeholder communications”.

As a board member, he is joining Oyo founder and group chief executive Ritesh Agarwal, Betsy Atkins, founder and CEO of Baja Corporation; Munish Varma, managing partner, SoftBank Vision Fund; Bejul Somaia, partner at Lightspeed India Partners Advisors; Mohit Bhatnagar, managing director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors…

IndiGo asks pilots to stop pushing Airbus engines to limit after shutdowns

IndiGo is the world’s top A320neo customer. It has 730 of the latest model on order and wants to expand its network.

IndiGo has told its pilots to stop pushing engines on its new Airbus SE jets to the limit when the planes are climbing, after India’s aviation regulator said the practice may have contributed to turbines failing in the air.

All the budget airline’s A320neo aircraft now use a lower thrust setting following take off, according to a spokeswoman from IndiGo, which has suffered 13 engine shutdowns during ascents this year. The decision was taken “in order to make every possible effort to minimize exposure of engines,” she wrote in an email, adding that manufacturer Pratt & Whitney stated there’s no evidence of a connection between climbing procedure and engine incidents.

Ascending at maximum power can help burn less fuel as it takes less time to reach cruising altitude. IndiGo made the switch only after India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation found in a probe—first reported by Bloomberg on Friday—that full-thrust climbs could wear down the engines and probably contributed to the shutdowns, people familiar with the matter said earlier.

IndiGo instructed pilots of the A320neo-family of jets last month to use no more than 93% thrust on the Pratt engines until they reach 25,000 feet (7,622 meters), the people said. They asked not to be identified because the change hadn’t been made public.

The airline spokeswoman said the change had “hardly any difference” in day to day operations, beyond taking two to three minutes longer for aircraft to reach optimum flight level due to lower thrust settings. “Difference in fuel consumption is marginal,” she said…