.jpg)
CEO's former airline ceases operations
Air Southwest, the last airline run by Air Malta CEO Peter Davies, has ceased operations eight months after it was sold to Eastern Airways.
The past is no guarantee of the future, but Air Malta chief executive Peter Davies’s legacy haunts him. Air Southwest, the regional UK airline he last served with as managing director, is to close down.
Air Southwest said its routes were not financially viable, the BBC reported.
The Plymouth-based airline will stop all of its flights and close by the end of September.
The airline flew from Plymouth Airport, servicing Glasgow, Guernsey, Jersey, Manchester, Aberdeen, Bristol, Cork, Dublin and Leeds Bradford.
The airline said that low demand levels meant that the routes were not financially viable. “Despite our original hopes, Air Southwest forward bookings are significantly lower than required and the level of demand is not financially viable,” its owners said.
The airline was sold to Eastern Airways in December 2010 by its parent company, Sutton Harbour Group to enable the company to “resource activities more effectively” – the airline had registered a loss of €4.5 million and sold for just €2.2 million.
“We have to make a profit. No company can afford to make these sort of losses,” Davies said back in December 2010. “We continue, as a management team with Eastern Airways, to look for ways and means to improve revenue and reduce costs.”
Air Southwest had earlier that year (February) entered into a “strategic airline alliance” with Eastern Airways to broaden its sales channels globally. Sutton Harbour later also closed down Plymouth Airport, which it owned.
Within months, Eastern announced it would be quitting the airline, which employed 135.
Today Davies is CEO of Air Malta with a €350,000 salary package.
From union talks to Air Caribbean
Peter Davies was appointed Air Southwest’s managing director in January 2009, coming with 27 years’ experience under his belt including CEO of SN Brussels Airlines, Belgium’s national airline, where he managed a staff of more than 2,000 and a fleet of 38 aircraft.
Before that he was most recently chief executive of Caribbean Airlines in the West Indies.
He joined the ailing BWIA, the national carrier for Trinidad and Tobago, in March 2006 to recommend a new airline – Caribbean Airlines – to replace the national carrier.
He then resigned from his position as CEO of Caribbean Airlines on 30 September 2007, but remained as a strategic advisor to the airline. His successor was Philip Saunders, who was then vice-president commercial at Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline alliance. Today Saunders is chief commercial officer at Air Malta.
Under Davies and Saunders, Caribbean Airlines registered a net loss of US$18.9 million at the end of 2007, but then registered a pre-tax profit of US$7.9 million on revenues of US$231 million for the year ending 2008.
•
take the money and run...
Jessica Chetcuti •
I fail to see the significance of this story
So a company that P Davies once worked for in the past is closing down. So what? In this day and age of World financial uncertainty that’s nothing unusual.
It stands to reason that small regional airlines like Southwest and Eastern can’t survive without fare paying customers, whilst at the same time being in competition with other airlines.
Other companies such as “Caribbean Airlines” and “SN Brussels” that P Davies once worked for still seem to be performing relatively well, so I will remain optimistic with the way that he handles Air Malta.
•
I bet he is worth every penny we are giving him. Did we give him a tax free status as well? The legacy of bringing loosers and failures to Malta to run our businesses runs back to the very first days of PN taking power in Malta. I remember the days of running computer courses to the English consultants they brought to Malta in the 1990's coz these geniuses who were being paid 10 to 30 times my salary had never used one before coming to Malta. There was one very obvious advantage to having these loosers in charge however, they knew we had given them a break they had no hope for in their own countries and were only too willing to fall inline with the corrupt practices that permeates everything the PN do. Put in their own parlance - they knew which side their bread was buttered.
A good many of them are still around in fact, working mostly with politically exposed companies we have so many to choose from these days. Its obvious they were not going back to be treated as the loosers they truly are.
•
Did anyone really think that a successful CEO would leave a lucrative Job with a world leading Airline to come and solve the mess at Air Malta. This guy was always employed with second rate airlines like Air Southwest and we brought him here and offered him a lucrative salary based on a four day week. This country is run by a government which has the habit of taking important and costly decisions without any background checks and then the damages done are covered by the tax payer.
•
@haha
Imma l-aqwa li ma huwwiex CUC MALTI...Mhux hekk????
•
So is this how Air Malta is going to end up under his Directions.
•
Let's hope that there is no similar fate for Air Malta but seemd likely the way things are going.
The way forward is to try and tap new routes like those to Spain.
