CEO Calin Rovinescu and COO Ben Smith took an airline that had been strip-mined during it’s bankruptcy by CEO Boy Wonder, Deutsche Bank and Cerberus Capitol management, and transformed it into a profitable and rapidly growing airline that I hardly recognize in the three years since I retired.
Calin is the money/finance guy, Ben is/was the vision guy. His preference is to be collaborative with his employees, rather than combative. Once the pilots realized this and started to work together with him is when AC really started to takeoff.
AC’s loss is, in my mind, definitely AF’s gain. Whether he’ll be successful or not will be interesting to watch - the labour problems at AF seem intractable. Still too much of an “aux barricades” mentality in France I’m afraid.