AA veteran Ken Gilbert joins central oneworld team as Vice-President Customer Experience and Airports

15 de enero de 2005

The oneworldTM  alliance has appointed Ken Gilbert as Vice-President Customer Experience and Airports.

He will lead the delivery and development of the alliance's customer services, including the final stages of its interline e-ticketing (IET) programme, which will be completed in the coming weeks making oneworld the first of the global airline alliances with IET in place between all partners.

He will also co-ordinate airport co-location moves by the group's member airlines, including their transfer to Madrid's new Terminal 4 later this year and the consolidation in London Heathrow's Terminals 3 and 5 when the latter opens in 2008.

Based at the alliance's main office in Vancouver and at Dallas/Fort Worth and reporting to oneworld Managing Partner John McCulloch, he succeeds Robert Antoniuk, who left the oneworld Management Company earlier this month to take up a senior airport operational position with member airline Cathay Pacific Airways.

Ken Gilbert is moving from oneworld member American Airlines, where he played a crucial role in establishing the alliance during his time as the airline's Managing Director Alliance Implementation, leading his counterparts from the other four founding partners in developing and launching oneworld in 1999.

He is currently AA's Managing Director Corporate Project Implementation, working on the airline's employee engagement initiative and responsible for a number of company-wide activities. He moved to that role after overseeing the integration into American of TWA, as Managing Director TWA Integration Core Team, following its purchase in 2001.

Earlier at American, he had served as Director Project Planning and Implementation in its Airline Management Services unit, handling the outsourcing to American of various IT and administrative systems for a number of other carriers.

He was also the first Corporate Director of AA's Admirals Club airport lounges, expanding the system worldwide and organising them into a single, cohesive unit.

He joined AA 25 years ago, starting in Human Resources when the company relocated its headquarters from New York to Dallas/Fort Worth. He then moved into various analytical and managerial financial positions, including Financial Controller for the airline's Marketing division.

Before American, he worked in retail and, briefly, in cargo pricing for United Airlines. HHHHe holds a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and History from Claremont Men's College in California and a Master's in Business Administration from the University of Chicago.

About oneworld: oneworld brings together some of the best and biggest names in the airline business - American Airlines, British Airways, Qantas, Iberia, Cathay Pacific, LAN, Finnair and Aer Lingus - enabling them to offer their customers more services and benefits than any airline can provide on its own. These include a broader route network, opportunities to earn and redeem frequent flyer miles and points across the combined oneworld network and more airport lounges. Together, its members serve almost 600 destinations in 135 countries. oneworld was voted the world's best airline alliance by readers of Business Traveller magazine in its 2004 poll and was this week named the World's Leading Airline Alliance for the second year running in the World Travel Awards, based on votes cast by travel professionals from 80.000 agencies in more than 200 countries. Note: LAN affiliate LAN ECUADOR is not a member of oneworld.