Golden handshake for former Air Malta chief

Former Air Malta chief executive Joe Cappello has come to an agreement with the airline that paid him an undisclosed amount in the form of a severance payment.

Cappello confirmed that he had terminated his relation with the national airline and will from next week take up the position of executive director at SMS Travel, where he will focus on the travel and tourism section of the company.

Cappello would not confirm details on the golden handshake. In December 2010 he was put on forced leave by the company after Ernst & Young’s consultants took over at Air Malta in a restructuring programme of the national airline.

Cappello, employed at Air Malta since 1976, was one of several casualties in the airline’s restructuring which is tied to a €50 million emergency loan.

His replacement, aviation veteran Peter Davies, was employed on a €350,000 salary and a €150,000 performance bonus.

Formerly a director of Air Southwest, Davies was recently in the news on a puff piece for his 15th century mill turned hotel in Chagwell.

The hotel had been given a makeover after its new owners, Davies and his wife Sue, “invested a six-figure sum in the business.”

The 15-bedroom Mill Hotel is located next to the River Teign and was unveiled in March.

“It has always been an aspiration of ours to have a complete lifestyle change and the Mill End has given us a great opportunity to do just that,” Sue Davies is quoted as saying. “We fell in love with the hotel before we had even opened the door.”

Peter Davies is quoted as saying: “It’s certainly been a steep learning curve but we’ve enjoyed almost every minute of it. We had a strong idea of the type of experience that we wanted to offer our guests and having a hands-on role in the day-to-day running of the hotel and interaction with guests is a professionally, as well as personally fulfilling part of our new lives.”

Peter Davies and his wife Sue have lived in Devon for the last 15 years and moved from Chagford to embark on a new life at the Mill End in October last year.

The 15th-century mill stopped producing flour in 1922, was converted into a private residence and then in 1929 opened as a country hotel.