Aer Lingus Gets New CEO

The new CEO of Aer Lingus, Christopher Mueller, was just appointed on July 17. He succeeds Dermot Mannion who quit back in April after fighting off two big hostile takeover bids from rival Irish carrier Ryanair.

Mueller, age 47, will be taking up his new role on October 1 and will also join the Aer Lingus board. Aer Lingus says that he has extensive experience in the aviation industry. Mueller has worked with Daimler Benz Aerospace, Sabena Group, DHL, Deutsche Post, and Lufthansa.

This new CEO of Aer Lingus was the chief financial officer of DHL Worldwide from 2002 up to 2004. He also became a member of the Executive Committee of Deutsche Post in 2004. Later on Mueller went on to join TUI in 2006 as executive in charge of its flight division and then became the executive director after TUI merged with First Choice Holidays.

During his time, Muller has already managed seven separate airlines and a fleet of 160 short haul and long haul aircrafts and had a team of 11,000 employees under him. However, Muller now has his hands full after joining an airline that has reported pretax losses of about €105 million and has announced a 25 percent cut in capacity.

He also comes in at a time when the airline has been under heavy fire from Ryanair, the low cost carrier that holds just over 29 percent of the stakes in Aer Lingus and has already tried to buy the carrier twice. However, Aer Lingus says that Muller can handled it and has a proven track record.