Emirates Airline, the world's biggest by international traffic, has announced 11 new appointments in its senior management.
The Dubai-headquartered airline said the reshuffle, all involving existing staff, mirrored Emirates' rapid expansion plans.
Emirates said yesterday that Adel Al Redha had been named executive vice president and chief operations officer responsible for engineering, flight operations, service delivery and airport services.
A veteran of 25 years with the airline, Mr Al Redha previously served as executive vice president of engineering and operations.
Thierry Antinori, a more recent hire at the airline, has been named executive vice president and chief commercial officer. His remit includes commercial operations, revenue optimisation, destination and leisure management, Emirates SkyCargo and the loyalty programme Skywards.
A former member of the management at Lufthansa, Mr Antinori joined Emirates in 2011 as executive vice president of passenger sales worldwide. He has more than 25 years in the aviation industry.
Emirates is adding to its global presence with new routes and by flying more passengers in Airbus A380 superjumbos.
It announced net income of Dh3.1 billion in the 12 months to March 31, up 34 per cent from the same period last year.
Susan Brown, the public relations manager at Emirates, said the appointments were not linked to the future of Tim Clark, who has served as the airline's president since 2003. Mr Clark, a member of the management team that founded the airline in 1985, is close to the official UAE retirement age of 65.
"While it's unwise to speculate a replacement for Tim Clark, who is clearly still going strong at Emirates, the airline is putting people in prime positions so that when the time does come for Mr Clark to go, Emirates will not be short of people willing and able to step into his shoes," said Saj Ahmad, the chief analyst at StrategicAero Research.com, an aviation consultancy.
The airline announced nine other appointments yesterday. Nabil Sultan, who has held numerous commercial roles in his 20 years with Emirates, was appointed divisional senior vice president of Emirates SkyCargo. He replaces Ram Menon, who retired this month.
Mr Sultan's previous role of divisional senior vice president for revenue optimisation and distribution is filled by Richard Jewsbury, the former senior vice president of commercial for Europe and Russia.
Adnan Kazim assumes the position of divisional senior vice president for planning, aeropolitical and industry affairs and Salem Obaidalla becomes senior vice president for aeropolitical and industry affairs.
Of the other appointments, Hubert Frach takes the newly created role of divisional senior vice president of commercial operations for the West; Barry Brown becomes divisional senior vice president of commercial operations for the East; and Paul Starrs was named senior vice president of global sales. Ramesh Venkat was appointed senior vice president for revenue optimisation, systems and procedures. Will Lofberg has been named vice president for international, government and environmental affairs.
