Gulf Air promotes finance chief

07 October 2008
Gulf Air has promoted its chief financial officer, Ismail Karimi, to deputy chief executive officer in the latest stage of the airline’s restructuring plan.

The Bahraini national carrier has promoted Karimi to provide support for president and chief executive officer Bjorn Naf.

“When I was appointed, I told the board it would help if I had someone who understands the business and the culture here,” says Naf.

“We have a lot of alignment programmes as part of the strategic roadmap in the airline, which he is dealing with.

“At the moment we have a lot of work in maintenance to modernise so we can handle the additional workload we are planning for.”

Gulf Air announced in late September that it was planning to build a $50m maintenance facility at Bahrain International Airport, in partnership with the Bahrain Real Estate Company (Edamah).

The hangar, which will have capacity for three wide-body aircraft, is scheduled for completion by 2011 (MEED 29:9:08).

Karimi has been replaced as chief financial officer by Neil Canty, previously at Kenya Airways.

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