But what is the point of him joining? Him alone is supposed to turn the company and the surrounding ocean of problems around?
I don't want to come across as an unconditional critic of EK, but I think the company is so constrained by all those costa-friendships, favors, country-specific mafias, royals and many other important people sucking EK dry that there is no way of turning it around. I mean why would things change? Who wants the change? Those who take decisions? No they don't. They are just fine in Costa or (at a higher level) in some fancy jet counting the millions they got in bonuses or dividends. Do you think those people give a crap about the line employees? Line employees want change, but without syndicates there is nothing they can do.
I think that this is all another BS injection from the management, the guy will stay around for 2-3 years and then will resign with no changes.
All the negative changes were done deliberately by the management and obviously favor the ones in power, otherwise all the idiotic decisions we have seen in the past couple of years would have never been taken in first place.