Cleartrip Lays Off 42
As the dynamics of air travel is changing with more and more airlines finding themselves stuck on the tarmac, the online travel ticketing business is going through some belt-tightening. Cleartrip, an online travel portal, has started laying off people over the past couple of months. While industry sources suggest that the venture funded company has issued pink slips to some 70 employees, the company has confirmed to VCCircle that it has indeed laid off 42. This is about 15 per cent of their total staff of 300. Cleartrip’s CEO Stuart Crighton told VC Circle that while 10 people have been laid off in the call center, the others have been laid off across various sections.
Crighton, who is a co-founder of Cleartrip, has now taken over as the CEO from Sandeep Murthy. Crighton was till now the COO of Cleartrip. Murthy, a representative of Sherpalo Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has become the Chairman. Murthy has been officiating as the CEO since the company kicked off in late 2005. More info on VCC.
This story was provided by our content partner VCCircle
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Comments (62)
Sep 11, 2008 1:12 PM
Bad News for industry & Its Growth.Hope Travel industry will be back to normal soon.
Sep 11, 2008 11:38 PM
I remember that they were hire writers just a couple of months ago
Sep 12, 2008 2:16 AM
Dear All who are reading this review,
My request to you all who want the job in ONLINE TRAVEL PORTALS.
they are big Balloons’, they already locked many peoples Career by giving them good pay.
Do the job at place where position of company is good.
They will offer you big salary if you get pink slip then dont get Surprise becouse there growth is only depends upon product.
Online travel portals are only to learn e-commerce becouse travel industry never work on this norms.
So please be aware of all this do not run after salary and position work in place where u are secure .
Prasad Bal
Sep 12, 2008 2:43 AM
Friends there is a correction coming in the Job Industry. We have seen the IT rationalizing the salaries and the appraisal cycles and Now its the Travel industry which saw a upscale move with the OTAs and now its in correction phase. One turbulense in this industry is good enough to shake your career up.
All i can suggest is….choose companies with steady and secured growth patterns and when you have done so be committed or face pink slips.
Sep 13, 2008 1:13 AM
It is sad to see indian cos following the boom-bust dot com cycle of yesteryears. With seasoned VC’s type at the head of these organisations one would wonder, why they are not also accountable for taking the co down the wrong path.Instead of poor employees getting canned. The mistake for cleartrip was there for all to see since 2007. Others had seen the limitations of their strategy and moved away viz. TravelGuru and Yatra. MMT is playing catch up, and ctrip has no clear Plan B, except sacking emloyees and appointing CEO from amongts founders, which is something which they should have done in the first place.
I also hold the board responsible (assuming ctrip has a functional one), it would be good for the naysayers on the board to be heard occasionally- that may help cos in harsh times.
Rahul
Sep 16, 2008 12:14 AM
How are the other OTA’s - Yatra, MMT etc - doing ?
With 0% commission (as per the article), its hard to imagine having 400 to 500 employees as per previous CS articles…
(How many employees do they have in reality - given nice offline centres etc…)
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Jun 20, 2009 5:16 PM
As an ex-cleartripper, I can only laugh at this report. Cleartrip hasn’t “laid-off” 42 employees - they’ve quit. Of course, the management can’t say that, or else they’ll lose PR brownie points. “Laid off” sounds much better.
Cleartrip has become a victim of their own management, who have consistently contributed towards the loss of quality of their what-could-have-been excellent product, while they got mired in establishing their voice in various management meetings for personal gains.
It’s a case of a company going downhill, not a company losing flab to get tighter. Would have loved to continue working there, but sadly no one there cares anymore.