The European Regions Airline Association (ERA), which has more than 60 members, elected Estonian airline Xfly CEO Jan Palmer as its new president at its annual meeting on October 1.
Palmer (70), who has worked mostly for Northern European airlines, has more than 40 years of experience in aviation. His knowledge has been particularly valued in rescuing airlines facing difficulties. For these reasons, Palmer was appointed to turn around Estonia’s national airline Estonian Air at the end of 2012, which he managed to return to profit, but due to illegal state aid the airline had previously been granted it was forced to terminate its operations at the end of 2015.
“After more than 20 years on the board of ERA and the last six years as its Vice-President, I am honoured to be elected President of as highly regarded and important a body as the European Aviation Association,” Palmer says. “The timing could have been better, since aviation and many other business sectors are facing their worst crisis ever, and I will certainly do my best to keep up the excellent work done so far by Andrew Kelly from the Irish Airline Group ASL. Airlines, airports, manufacturers and suppliers will have to work closely with the professional ERA Team led by Montserrat Barriga to find ways of getting the aviation industry through the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be challenging, but for better or worse, I won’t give up.”
Palmer is joined on the ERA board by Carlos Bertomeu, Air Nostrum and Andrew Kelly, ASL Airlines Ireland who have also been re-elected and elected as Vice Presidents of the association.
Other new board members are: Luc Bereni, Air Corsica; Thora Eggertsdóttir, Air Iceland Connect; Jóhanna á Bergi, Atlantic Airways; David Manzanas, Binter; Jasmin Bajić, Croatia Airlines; Andy Green, Jota Aviation; Mikael Wångdahl, SAS External Production and Valter Fernandes, TAP express operated by Portugália Airlines.
Finally, Marco Balbo, Superjet International and Patrick Edmond, Shannon Airport have been voted to represent the association’s manufacturer and airport categories, respectively.