Briton Peter Davies, Air Malta’s new chief executive officer, has been offered a package of close to €500,000 a year, The Times has learnt.
Mr Davies, who has over 35 years experience in the aviation industry, was offered a salary of about €320,000 and a performance bonus of a further €150,000 a year, sources said.
He was engaged for three years and was expected to start the job in mid-April, the sources added.
He served as managing director of Air Southwest in the UK, which, last September, was sold to Eastern Airways.
Mr Davies has experience in passenger and express cargo operations and has served as CEO at SN Brussels Airlines, which he successfully launched as the successor of airline Sabena, the national airline of Belgium that went bankrupt in 2001. During his term, Mr Davies restored the airline’s stability after two years of operations by rationalising the airline’s network and internal processes and focusing on yield management on European and African routes, Air Malta said.
Mr Davies also oversaw the restructuring of BWIA into Caribbean Airlines.
His overall experience covers various aspects of global transportation and express logistics including senior board positions in DHL based in Europe and the US.
A qualified pilot, Mr Davies has also held operational and marketing positions in Qantas and managing director at XP Express Systems, a subsidiary of KLM.
Mr Davies was presented to the Air Malta restructuring committee yesterday although there was no mention of his salary package.
Sources said Mr Davies was the cheapest of three short-listed contenders for the post. The most expensive asked for a package exceeding €1.1 million.
The choice of Mr Davies as Air Malta’s CEO comes after the government failed to engage the services of Dutchman Cor Vrieswijk, former operations director of low-cost carrier EasyJet and a key consultant on Air Malta’s restructuring team.
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech had been actively engaged in talks with Mr Vrieswijk to take over as the national carrier chief executive but talks failed.
Mr Davies’s appointment comes as the government enters into delicate negotiations on the restructuring plan prepared by consultants Ernst & Young, which has already been shot down by the pilots’ union, the General Workers’ Union and the Labour Party.
Air Malta has to shed half its workforce to be competitive and the plan being discussed has to be agreed upon with the European Commission by mid-May before permission is given to lend the airline €52 million for its restructuring.