Loss making BMI brings in Wolfgang Prock-Schauer to reinvigorate business

BMI, the loss-making UK airline that its owner Lufthansa is considering selling, has appointed a new chief executive as part of a wider management shake-up.
Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, currently chief executive of India’s Jet Airways, has been brought in by the German carrier to reinvigorate a business that some analysts believe is heading for £200m losses this year.
He replaces Nigel Turner, who has been with Bmi for 22 years and chief executive for the past five. Mr Turner is taking a non-executive role as deputy chairman, including carrying out “various ambassadorial roles”.
One casualty of the shake-up is Tim Bye, the deputy chief executive, who will leave Bmi by the end of this month. Mr Prock-Schauer, an Austrian national, will join as deputy chief executive on November 1 and take the controls a month later.
Lufthansa played down talk that his appointment indicated that it was no longer interested in selling Bmi. It is understood that the German carrier believes that, whether it decides to sell it or not, it first needs to improve the airline’s profitability.
Mr Turner said he had known Mr Prock-Schauer “for some years” and indicated he was not unhappy about relinquishing the chief executive’s role.
Mr Prock-Schauer, who was born in Waldviertel, Austria, in 1956, began his career at Austrian Airlines, which is itself now part of the Lufthansa group. He is married with three children.
08/10/09 Alistair Osborne/Telegraph.co.uk, UK

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Categories: Foreign Oct 2009, Jet Airways Oct 2009