Andrew Cowan, currently chief strategy officer of MAG, has been appointed divisional chief executive of London Stansted Airport.

Cowan will take up his role at the UK’s fourth largest airport on April 1st and lead a team of over 1,400 employees.

Prior to becoming chief strategy officer at MAG, he was managing director of Manchester Airport.

Andrew Harrison, who has led Stansted since MAG’s acquisition of the airport in March 2013, will assume the role of chief strategy officer at MAG, based in Manchester.

In this new role, one of Cowan’s key responsibilities will be to spearhead a new function tasked with defining MAG’s digital strategy and e-commerce business model.

This “MAG-online” proposition will also enable the improvement of customer service and airport efficiency, and expand MAG’s profitable products and services portfolio outside of the group.

Under Harrison’s leadership, London Stansted Airport has become one of the UK’s fastest growing airports; adding five million passengers and now offering more European destinations than any other UK airport.

During the last three years, £80 million has been spent on transforming London Stansted’s terminal and British Airways has recently announced plans to begin flights from the airport.

Announcing the appointments, Charlie Cornish, chief executive officer of MAG, said: “Since MAG acquired London Stansted, Andrew Harrison has done a fantastic job of driving growth at the airport and integrating it into the wider Group.

“Andrew Cowan is hugely experienced and I am confident that he will continue to build on the great foundations that exist at Stansted.

“The airport has even greater potential and there is a clear and pressing need to improve its rail links in order to enable it to take the strain as other London airports reach capacity and before any new runway can be built in the south east.”