Etihad CEO Named Airline Leader Of The Year

We’ve said it here before on Forbes, Etihad Airways is the best airline you’ve never flown.

On Sunday in London, James Hogan, CEO of the United Arab Emirates based airline, was named the industry’s top executive in the Airline Strategy Awards by Airline Business Magazine.


In a sector often looked at as one of the worst investments around, both for portfolio managers and big shot investors who love airline ownership as much as they do sports teams, Etihad has managed to find its own path. It’s grown organically out of one of the richest areas on the globe (average income in cities like Abu Dhabi in UAE is around $65,000; UAE’s GDP per capita is closer to $50,000, not far behind the United States).

It’s also grown through acquisitions, recently making headlines when it offered to buy a stake in Jet Airways of India after rumors circulated in the airline biz that it was a possible white knight for Vijay Mallya’s ailing Kingfisher Airlines.

Today, at just 12 years old, Etihad is the fourth largest carrier in the Middle East and second largest in tiny UAE. Better known Emirates is No. 1 there.

But when it comes to travel awards, Etihad continues to rank as high as Emirates and Qatar Airways, and — like their rivals — beats out Western airlines in customer satisfaction.

The man in charge of it all, Hogan, was chosen for the award of best executive leadership by judges who came were either former industry executives or analysts.

“In the past 12 months many airlines around the world have struggled with their business during challenging economic times but James has spearheaded a remarkable growth story and the panel was delighted to make him the aviation industry’s executive leader of the year,” said Max Kingsley-Jones, a judge and editor of Airline Business magazine.

Etihad Airways is privately held. The company reported a 200% increase in net profits to $42 million on revenues of $4.8 billion last year, a rise of 17% from 2011 figures. Passenger traffic rose by 23% to more than 10 million and the air carrier contributed $2.3 billion of direct investment in Abu Dhabi, the company said in a press release on Monday.

Etihad has chosen to the go the route of equity partnership with airlines rather than joining alliances. Hogan told Forbes recently that partial ownership deals with other airlines allowed Etihad to share costs with other companies on items like maintenance, among other things.

Etihad has a partial stake in Airberlin, Air Seychelles, Virgin Australia, Aer Lingus and Jet Airways, which is still subject to regulatory approval in India. Etihad was the first foreign airline to jump in on India’s newly opened market.

Past executive leadership winners from the Airline Leadership Awards were Shinchiro Ito of Japan’s All Nippon Airways in 2012; Kong Dong of Air China in 2011 and Richard Anderson of Delta Air Lines in 2010. The award is organized by Airline Business magazine, a part of the Reed Business Information publishing group in the U.K.

Other executive winners included Carolyn McCall, CEO of London-based EasyJet for best low cast carrier exec, and Tewolde Gebremariam, who was awarded best CEO of a regional carrier over at Ethiopean Airlines.