How UAE defence giant EDGE Group plans to double its exports
The UAE defence conglomerate has put an aggressive strategy in place to increase its share of exports while navigating the growing gap between East and West.
AirTran Airways has announced leadership promotions and reporting changes in the areas of operations and customer service.
Klaus Goersch becomes executive vice president, operations and customer service, in which role he will continue to lead the airline's flight operations, maintenance and engineering, and system operations control, and will assume new responsibilities for oversight of airport customer service, inflight service, reservations and customer relations. In this new role, Goersch will report to Bob Fornaro, chairman, president and CEO. Goersch joined AirTran Airways in 1996 as director of safety and has held a series of progressively more responsible flying and leadership positions over the past 14 years.
The new senior vice-president customer service is to be Jack Smith, who will continue to lead the airport customer service and inflight service group as well as increasing his role with the company by assuming new responsibilities for the oversight of reservations sales and customer relations – adding more than 800 crew members in three Georgia call centres to his group. With these changes, Smith has responsibility for all aspects of customer service from making a reservation to retrieving a bag. Smith joined AirTran Airways eight years ago and will report to Goersch.
Rocky Wiggins, who serves as senior vice-president, information services and chief information officer, assumes new responsibilities for process improvement in order to improve product and services to all customers. Wiggins will continue to report to Bob Fornaro.
Stephen Kolski switches form being executive vice-president for operations and corporate affairs to serve as executive vice-president, corporate affairs. Reporting to Fornaro, Kolski will focus on various areas including regulatory compliance, labour negotiations and Atlanta airport lease negotiations.
"These changes enhance the company's overall focus and coordination to better serve our customers," remarked Bob Fornaro. "We have an exceptional leadership team at AirTran Airways, and we are proud of the contributions Klaus, Jack, Rocky and Steve have made and will continue to make at the airline. Today's announcement aligns the interests of the airline with our customers as we strive to build an even better airline going forward."
All the changes are effective immediately.
The UAE defence conglomerate has put an aggressive strategy in place to increase its share of exports while navigating the growing gap between East and West.
The US Congress has raised concerns about how inflation rates and cuts in main acquisition programmes could affect the US military.
Washington’s ageing inventory and the pace Moscow and Beijing have been modernising their capabilities put in check the US Nuclear deterrence.
The Pentagon has been operating under temporary funding since October 2023, which has impacted its main acquisition and development programmes, increasing the capability gap between the US and China.
In 2023, defence spending increased by an unprecedented 11% across European NATO countries and Canada. Since 2014, the group has spent an additional US$600 billion on defence.
The DoD requested nearly US$850 billion to fund operations over the next fiscal year. Despite the amount being 1% higher than the FY2024 budget request, it has not covered the 3% inflation rate, which could impact the DoD’s main programmes in the medium and long term.