Labour, Air Malta chief executive in all-out media war

Air Malta's chief executive officer Peter Davies has threatened Labour organ maltastar.com with court action over reports that have questioned the selection of marketing group FutureBrand for the airline's rebranding.

FutureBrand was directly appointed by the airline for the rebranding and repositioning of the national airline, but neither Air Malta nor the marketing firm have divulged details of the rebranding contract.

Maltastar has claimed that Air Malta's marketing consultant Paul Simons, allegedly engaged on a €20,000 monthly contract, introduced FutureBrand to Air Malta for the rebranding of the airline for the Valletta 2018 Capital of Culture campaign.

The Labour e-newspaper has hinted that the direct appointment may be contrary to the airline's procurement regulations.

A high-profile market strategist, Paul Simons was formerly chairman of marketing giants TBWA, and Ogilvy & Mather, and he comes highly recommended by Peter Davies on his LinkedIn profile page: "I've worked with Paul on several major international commercial assignments... I have no hesitation to recommend him to any CEO who has business challenges in the brand marketing space."

Simons previously stated on his LinkedIn profile that his assignment at Air Malta was "on behalf" of Peter Davies, a detail that has since been removed from his profile page but still visible on search engines.

Simons and Davies worked together during the latter's tenure at British West Indian Airlines, later rebranded as Caribbean Airlines as part of a $20 million campaign by Simons's consultancy firm Cagney plc. Simons also lists Air Southwest, a regional airline that was also headed by Peter Davies shortly before its demise, as one of his past clients.

But Peter Davies has taken umbrage at the reports by Maltastar, demanding an apology for what he termed a "targeted smear campaign" that was tarnishing the reputation of the managers he had appointed to Air Malta.

Part of the ongoing criticism by the Labour media on Davies, employed on a salary of €350,000 and a €150,000 performance bonus, is that his choice of managers all hail from Catalise Limited and Catalise Pty.

Davies is a former director of Catalise plc, a UK consultancy firm from where he recruited turnaround experts during his tenure at the helm of such airlines as SN Brussels, and later BWIA. Catalise has since been dissolved, but founder-director Ray Hart - today Air Malta's chief restructuring officer - is the director of Australian offshoot Catalise Pty.

The airline has gone on record stating that Catalise consultants have been employed on an interim basis during the sensitive period to secure EU approval for the airline's €238 million restructuring plan.

Australians Ray Hart, a founder of Catalise Limited, and Neale Anderson are today the directors of Catalise Pty in Australia - Hart is now Air Malta's chief restructuring officer, assisted by Anderson as human resources manager.

The other Catalise associates include David Wallace, head of project management at Air Malta, who is an associate director of Catalise Pty; airline restructuring consultant Augusto Viansson Ponte, who was formerly employed at Catalise Pty as well as having worked with Davies at BWIA and SN Brussels; investment management consultant Azeem Mian who was employed by Catalise at BWIA; while airline specialist Philip Saunders, who worked with Davies at BWIA before taking the post of CEO at the rebranded Caribbean Airlines, is now Air Malta's chief commercial officer.