Dnata to develop charter flying business
Thomas Cook’s former digital UK and international sales director has been recruited by dnata Travel Group to create a new charter flying programme.
Henry Sunley starts this week in the new role of director of air supply to procure short and medium haul capacity across dnata’s B2B and B2C brands, which include Travel Republic, Netflights, Gold Medal, Travel2 and Travelbag.
Responsibility for long-haul will remain with director of air product Simon Woodford.
Sunley will report directly to dnata Travel Group CEO, John Bevan, based at the company’s new offices in Leyland, Lancashire.
"This is an exciting new challenge for me, and I’m looking forward to using all my experience gained at Thomas Cook to make dnata Travel Group even more successful," said Sunley.
"Several million airline seats are sold each year across the group’s brands, so it’s vitally important that those are being secured at the right price, and sold to our millions of customers properly.
"I’m particularly excited by the opportunity to build a charter proposition for the group, using my expertise in this area to maximise what we see as being a market with considerable potential."
Bevan said it was a ‘logical step’ for dnata to control a proportion of the flight capacity it uses as it pursues its growth strategy.
"In Henry I know we have the right person for this exciting new market for us," he said.
"He is a great addition to our senior leadership team and will mean we can significantly accelerate the effectiveness and ambition of our air capacity planning and procurement across our whole group, and our range of product. I’m delighted to welcome such a well-respected and well-connected individual to the dnata family."
Sunley worked for Thomas Cook for 24 years, including 17 years at its tour operations~before moving to Thomas Cook Airlines in 2012.
He joins a number of other ex-Thomas Cook staff who have joined dnata since Thomas Cook’s failure in a variety of sales, operations, service and back office roles.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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