Etihad Airways promotes Cramer Ball to Regional General Manager Asia Pacific South and Australasia

Cramer Ball, Etihad Airways manager for Australia and New Zealand, has been promoted to the role of regional general manager (RGM) Asia Pacific South and Australasia. The new appointment comes after the airline recorded very strong growth for its first year of Australian services, which saw more than 100,000 passengers fly with the airline and the number of flights to and from Australia more than triple within its first twelve months of Australian operations.

Mr Ball has been appointed to one of two new RGM positions, to help lead the Abu Dhabi-based airline’s growing presence in the Asia Pacific region.

The new role will see Mr Ball based in Bangkok and will take affect from 1 June this year. The new RGM Asia Pacific South and Australasia role will report directly to Adrian Parkes, Etihad Airways’ vice president sales.

 “The launch of new and increased services in the Asia Pacific and Australasia regions has underpinned the strong global expansion of Etihad Airways, and the incredible success of our Australian services has played a key role in this,” said Mr Ball.

 “I am pleased to have the chance to experience new challenges and work with a great team of staff in order to create further opportunities for our passengers and staff in Australia and the Asia Pacific South region. I also look forward to having a greater role in contributing to the rapid growth of Etihad Airways.”

Mr Ball will cover a region that includes Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. 

Adrian Parkes, Etihad Airways’ vice president sales, said, “This new position reflects the airline’s ambitious growth and development plans in the respective regions. For example, we started services to Beijing in China recently and announced plans to fly to Almaty in Kazakhstan in December 2008.

“The airline is also boosting its flying programme to India with the addition of four new destinations - Chennai (Madras), Jaipur, Kolkata (Calcutta) and Kozhikode (Calicut) - following successful bi-lateral talks earlier this year between the governments of the UAE and India.”

Etihad will increase its daily service to Sydney to 11 flights per week from 31 October 2008.

In addition, flights to Kozhikode and Chennai will start this northern summer, with the launch dates of the other two new routes to be confirmed later in 2008. Etihad is pushing to secure traffic rights to further cities in India, including Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

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