Controversial Etihad Chief Commercial Officer Arik De Abruptly Departs

Nadia wasn’t exactly popular to begin with, but ooh boy, after this scandal, she has managed to become the most disliked person after Arik. Just look at her apparent achievements: bringing in café shops and decorating office spaces. Sometimes you genuinely wonder whether her long-term vision is to transform HR into an actual restaurant, because at this rate, we might need menus instead of HR policies.

Arik Kumar: A Betrayal of Trust and a Leadership Failure Arik, you were entrusted by EY and your team to help us navigate a critical journey. What we experienced instead was a deeply disappointing side of your leadership, marked by allegations of dishonesty, toxicity, and a complete disregard for employee well-being. It is astonishing that this situation was allowed to continue for so long, while HR once again failed to intervene meaningfully. Some of the most concerning aspects of your leadership were: 1. The obsession with office presence: Expecting employees to remain in the office for 12 hours a day, often unnecessarily, reflects an outdated management mentality that prioritises physical presence over productivity, efficiency, and results. 2. Shouting and intimidation: Raising your voice at employees creates a toxic environment where fear replaces constructive dialogue. 3. Threatening employees with termination: Making employees fear for their jobs simply because they challenge your ideas undermines trust, discourages critical thinking, and turns leadership into a one-way dictatorship. 4. Disregard for personal time: Scheduling unnecessary meetings over weekends or late at night demonstrates a troubling lack of respect for employees' personal lives. 5. Disrespect for employees' time: Summoning people to your office at 6 or 7 p.m., sometimes even later, and then leaving them waiting for hours reflects poor planning and a lack of basic professional courtesy. 6. Making meetings about yourself: Too many meetings appeared to revolve around your own presence, your jokes, and your attempts to entertain, rather than meaningful discussion, decisions, and business outcomes. 7. Confusing leadership with ownership: Your position appeared to create the expectation that everyone should accommodate your demands, both inside and outside the workplace. 8. The exhausting WhatsApp groups with their unrealistic demands around the clock, 24/7. Going Forward: What Etihad Must Learn 1. Stop confusing prestigious résumés with effective leadership. Consulting experience alone does not make someone a capable executive. Recruitment must prioritise proven people-management skills, accountability, emotional intelligence, and the ability to deliver sustainable results. 2. Make leadership appointments based on merit, not background or personal connections. Nationality, ethnicity, and personal networks should never substitute for competence, integrity, and professional standards. 3. Hold HR accountable for its failures. After years of employee concerns, HR must demonstrate that it can independently investigate complaints, protect employees from retaliation, and challenge senior executives when necessary. Its responsibility is to the organisation and its people, not simply to those holding the highest positions. 4. Rebuild a culture where employees can speak up without fear. Disagreement should be welcomed when it is constructive. No employee should have to choose between protecting their professional integrity and protecting their livelihood. The bottom line: Arik's tenure should serve as a serious warning about what happens when executive authority goes unchecked, employee concerns are ignored, and HR fails to act. Etihad deserves leaders who earn respect through their conduct and results, not leaders who expect respect simply because of their titles. The real measure of this episode will not be the departure of one executive. It will be whether Etihad finally addresses the management failures that allowed these concerns to persist.

The idiot genuinely thought he was invincible, convinced he could treat his own employees however he pleased and walk away without consequences. Watching him finally face the ultimate corporate punishment was nothing short of satisfying. Oooooooouuuuuuuutttttttt

Can’t believe Etihad gave this clown a portfolio with a title that, to my knowledge, no other airline in the world uses: Chief Revenue and Commercial Officer (CRCO). It was unprecedented, and now CRCO has turned into CROC. If that isn’t a glaring example of how clueless HR and the CEO were in designing the leadership structure, I don’t know what is.

What does etihad even stand for? An airline that flys to random places all over the world doesn’t seem to have any plan whatsoever. Like how can a successful airline really say seriously that they fly to New York and London but at the same time to Lubumbashi and Medan? It’s almost like Arik just pointed at a map and went yep that’ll do. He always bragged about how much he had been to every country in the world (definitely a lie) and how he had 5 passports (what’s the point) and that seemed to be how he picked routes. Did the CEO and Captain Majed never point out the flaws in this stupidity? And then there was the unlimited double daily and increased frequency announcements after days of being released! Yay double daily, but again were they even full? Who knows. But the way he controlled ifly was truly disgusting. He was literally on duty travel with his posse of pussys multiple times a week every week for no reason yet normal staff members could never get ID50s because it was harming revenue! So him taking 20 people to Lisbon for 24 hours for a meeting that could have been an email didn’t harm revenue but the occasional ID50 for staff was the problem! Luckily CEO helped staff out there (oh wait of course he didn’t the moron). But the worst worst worst example. Whilst UAE was being attacked relentlessly by Iran this idiot was sending selfies with his hypnotised retarded loyal followers in the office (against government guidelines) saying how much he missed seeing everyone in HQ. Truly sickening that he was making it known people should be in the office. And then idiot CEO and even bigger idiot Nadia then had us all back in anyway, only for us to spend everyday in the car park sheltering instead of working had we been at home. A scandal in itself. Well little Arik Ivander Kumar you’ll never work again (unless it’s for Air Lubumbashi) and I take great happiness in the fact that you’ve crawled off with your carrier bag. Let’s hope Dani, Ruiradh, Javi and all of the other chiefs join you out the building soon enough you horrible little dog. As for Etihad, a loser airline constantly in the shadows of your big brother down the road, how sad and pathetic.