Guys, you’ve seen it, and you’ve heard it. Arik Kumar was FIRED in what has to be one of the most humiliating exits imaginable.
Walking out of the building carrying nothing but a grocery bag. What a spectacular fall from grace.
Kumar is constantly checking this website. Someone commented on an Instagram story and he set his profile to private.
The cabin crew member deleted his farewell comment on Kumar’s post. He also set his profile to private and deleted anything that could relate to Kumar.
Has someone sent this note to Greg Saretsky? Kumar had this idolatry for him.
Oh boy the circles of life.
Kumar is constantly checking this website. Someone commented on an Instagram story and he set his profile to private.
The cabin crew member deleted his farewell comment on Kumar’s post. He also set his profile to private and deleted anything that could relate to Kumar.
Has someone sent this note to Greg Saretsky? Kumar had this idolatry for him.
Oh boy the circles of life.
Arik the Untouchable — Until He Wasn't
What’s absolutely hilarious is that Arik Kumar genuinely believed he was invincible and untouchable. After the way he treated his employees, the alleged abuse of power, and the way he seemingly used his position to secure personal benefits from the company, he acted as though the rules simply didn’t apply to him.
Little did he realise that, behind all the arrogance and self-importance, he was far more disposable than he imagined. The very organisation he thought he had power over could move on without him in a heartbeat.
He treated people as if they were expendable, only to discover that he was expendable himself. What a spectacular reality check.
The team in the U.S. are inundated with frustrated travel agents and passengers alike as a result of our reckless rapid expansion this year. Chicago flights were increased from daily to double daily since June in the hope that we would capture all the spill over Air India demand despite warnings sent to Arik and the Network Planning team that under the present climate, it would be better to consolidate rather than expand. Recently the double daily Chicago flights have been reduced to daily with countless number of passengers missing connections, being re-routed and hassled. The double daily Chicago flights forecast was definitely overestimated. Atlanta is in a similar situation where the daily flight is reduced to five weekly when both cities have high advance loads for December from USA as per usual demand pattern heading to the Indian subcontinent and Middle East for Christmas break.
Emails get sent from head office to help support silly initiatives to boost loads on four daily Colombo, five daily Phuket / Bangkok flights all in the name of aircraft utilization boost which defies common sense. Our European colleagues are faring no less and are under a lot of unwanted stress too as frequency increases for Zurich, Geneva, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich all have been shelved.
Arik's chain of thought on network expansion relies on multiple connections filling the plane at any fare level just to show a high seat factor. We have had high loads across the network for the past two years but at the expense of a big drop in yield largely due to the excess capacity being deployed in numerous markets. The insanely and weirdly calculated annual budget targets are purposely made in a way to threaten sales teams with their jobs if they dont buckle up despite the market demand forces stating otherwise. He does not seem to understand that apart from Etihad, we have very strong competitors too such as Emirates, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and Saudia whom have their own loyal following for various reasons. Passengers like flying Etihad's wide body aircraft but everyone cant be forced to.
A vast majority of our passengers from USA are VFR whilst from Europe, it is a better mix of VFR, leisure, corporate and tour operator business. What they all have in common is hating the new Etihad Economy Basic fare which allows 0kg checked in baggage allowance and only a 7kg cabin bag. When agents sell this fare to the passenger, they do not inform them of the baggage rules and at the end of the day, the passenger takes out their frustration at the Etihad Airport check in counter staff which in turn creates bad PR for the airline. Our primary competition Emirates and Qatar Airways all have their lowest starting fares with one free suitcase 20-23kg checked in baggage allowance but our RM + Commercial leader thinks what we do is better than the rest.
Etihad is a great airline to fly and has a lot of potential but the right people are not at the leadership position which is ultimately hurting the carrier realize it. We can only pray for better days ahead in 2027.