British Midland today announced the appointment of Rohan Alce to the position of Vice President - Americas, based in Chicago. Reporting to James Hogan, chief operating officer, the new role encompasses all areas of the airline’s activity in America including airport services, sales and marketing.

Rohan will take up his new position in February and will be responsible for both the US routes to Manchester Airport. His key activity will be establishing the airline in America, overseeing sale of the airline’s product and developing the relationship with United Airlines, British Midland’s codeshare partner on transatlantic routes from Manchester.

James Hogan, chief operating officer said:

This is clearly a key appointment for the airline as we progress towards the launch of services to America this spring. Rohan has the important and demanding role of communicating our presence to a large number of new audiences, in addition to ensuring that the day to day running of the operation runs efficiently and smoothly.

Rohan has over thirty years of aviation experience, covering a wide range of airline operations. Most importantly, he has experience at successfully launching routes to the UK from Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles.

We have every confidence that Rohan`s great depth of experience will ensure our American launch and future operation is a successful one.

British Midland announced the launch of direct scheduled services from Manchester to Washington Dulles and Chicago O’Hare in September 2000. Services will commence to Washington on 30 April, followed on 21 May 2001 with Chicago. The launches will bring the first direct flights to the American capital from Manchester, and will provide the first-ever competition on the Manchester-Chicago route. A wide-bodied Airbus A330-200 series aircraft will operate both services.

Rohan Alce joined British Midland in August 1999, as director - cargo with the task of overhauling the division. A succession of new and aggressive strategies saw continued growth for the division with figures for 2000 showing a significant increase on 1999. The division was also voted Air Cargo Carrier of the Year in 2000 by International Freighting Weekly. The airline will announce his replacement shortly.

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