Dismissed Air Malta chief operations officer sought job at Air India

MaltaToday is reliably informed that Brock Freisen is among three who were “interviewed” last March for the post at Air India together with Vice President of flight operations in Jet Airways Gustav Baldauf, and senior director of marketing in Air Canada George Reeleder.

An Indian Civil Aviation official has reported that  “a lot of due diligence has being carried out on the final selection.”

National Aviation company of India Ltd (NACIL), the holding company formed after the marger of Indian airlines and Air India in 2007, was to choose the COO, however it remains unknown what decision has been taken by Air India regarding Brock Freisen.

The Air India management comprising civil aviation secretary M Madhavan Nambiar and Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav along with industrialist Sajjan Jindal, Uday Kotak and Anand Mahindra conducted the interview of the three candidates.

Brock Freisen arrived at Air Malta in 2006 and was summoned to the Chairman’s office yesterday afternoon, where he was dismissed on long leave.

According to senior Air Malta sources, Brock Freisen still had a year and a half to go before ending his well remunerated contract with the national airline.

It remains unknown what agreement has been reached with Freisen, and how much will his dismissal cost Air Malta.

Meanwhile, former EasyJet chief financial controller Robert Palmer, who initially was engaged by government to look into the restructuring needed at Air Malta has immediately taken over as Chief Operations Officer at the national Airline.

Palmer is reportedly in constant liason with Chairman Sonny Portelli and taking drastic decisions on the airline’s expenditure.

All levels of management have been reportedly stripped of all authority from approving expenditure and have been given strict instructions to pass on everything to the Ernst & Young team that are hands on every department of Air Malta.

E&Y restructuring expert Alan Hudson who is compiling the airline’s restructuring report for government has meanwhile refused to give comments to the media and has referred all questions to be answered by Air Malta’s public relations office.