Etihad Airways has appointed experienced management executive Dr Salwa Al-Noaimi (below) as its new vice-president recruitment. Salwa will be responsible for the recruitment of new personnel to Etihad, especially in terms of selecting, interviewing and appointing nationals from the United Arab Emirates across the airline.
Idris Jala, the managing director and chief executive of Malaysia Airlines, has had his contract extended and will remain with the carrier for another three years.
MAS says Idris, whose contract was originally due to expire at the end of November this year, will now remain as chief executive until November 2011.
Former Cathay Pacific Airways chief David Turnbull (right) has been appointed as chairman of newly formed Seabury Aviation & Aerospace Asia, based in Hong Kong.
AMERICAS
Nobles builds his rescue team
Industry veteran Bruce Nobles has returned to struggling Caribbean carrier Air Jamaica to turn around the perennially loss-making airline and prepare it for imminent privatisation.
Since arriving in late October Nobles has moved fast to build a new executive team at the carrier, which had been led by acting chief executive and former Air Jamaica executive William Rodgers for the past year.
Nobles has recruited former Global Aero Logistics chief executive Subodh Karnik as executive vice-president commercial and hired Howard Hall as Air Jamaica's chief financial officer. Karnik is a former senior marketing and planning executive at Delta Air Lines and has also worked at Continental and ATA.
Nobles first worked with Hall at the carrier earlier this decade when they worked together in exactly the same roles. He has brought Hall back to Air Jamaica from the Insurance Company of the West Indies where he was chief financial officer.
Nobles says he was approached by Jamaica's finance minister to come back to lead the country's flag carrier. He first worked with Air Jamaica in the late 1990s leading an evaluation of the airline for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Then owner Butch Stewart asked him to implement its recommendations in 2002 but the arrangement didn't work out and Nobles left nine months later.
Nobles was then part of attempts to acquire Hawaiian and Aloha Airlines when they were in Chapter 11 bankruptcy but neither succeeded. He has since been working as an aviation consultant and running a small logistics business.
The Jamaican government decided in late 2007 that it would sell the airline it nationalised in 2004. It retained International Finance Corporation to oversee the privatisation and set a deadline of March 2009 to divest Air Jamaica.
For Nobles the task is to see this through and simultaneously restore the airline's poor on-time performance, reduce costs and push the carrier towards break even. It has never made a profit.
"The target is to get Air Jamaica adequately capitalised with the right strategy and direction for the company to get it to profitability," says Nobles. "I believe this is possible."
Mark Pilling in Cancun
ASIA
SpiceJet's new CEO
Indian low-cost carrier SpiceJet has named Sanjay Aggarwal as its new chief executive officer. He was most recently the chief operating and chief strategy officer of US-based fractional ownership operator Flight Options. SpiceJet had been without a top executive since the departure of executive chairman Siddhanta Sharma in July. The carrier recently secured new investors, including US private equity firm WL Ross & Co.
Nicholas Ionides in Singapore
Insider joins Qantas
Qantas Airways has ensured its continued close relations with the Australian government by appointing David Epstein as executive general manager of government and corporate affairs. Epstein resigned recently as chief of staff for Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd.
His new Qantas post combines the former positions of government relations and corporate affairs. Epstein replaces David Hawes and Belinda de Rome, who are both leaving.
David Knibb in Seattle
Source: Airline Business
