NEW YORK: Nikos Kardassis, Jet Airways' CEO from 1993 to 1999, has returned to the management of the airline in order to assume responsibility as head of Jet Airways' North American operation and as senior advisor to the Chairman for Corporate Strategy and Finance.Mumbai-based Jet Airways, India's largest privatized airline, is in the midst of a massive global expansion, introducing as many as twenty new international routes in the last 12 months, including four daily flights to North America.

"The routes to the United States and Canada are our biggest and most challenging area of expansion," says Naresh Goyal, Jet Airways' founder and chairman, "which is why I am so delighted that Nikos Kardassis has accepted my invitation to return to us as Senior Vice President, the Americas, and to steer us through this critical phase as we watch fuel costs rise and the global economy soften."Kardassis' base of operation will be New York, from which Jet Airways operates two daily flights to Brussels and India, one each from John F. Kennedy and Newark Liberty international airports.

With the June 14 launch of daily San Francisco-Shanghai-Mumbai service, Zainul Aljunied, the airline's newly designated Vice President Western USA based in San Francisco, will focus on strengthening Jet Airways' profile on the West Coast.The above changes reflect the Company's determined effort to provide focus and grow the business against the threat of rising fuel cost and a softening global economy.