A senior member of the Aer Arann management team, Peter McKenna, has decided to leave the airline after almost 15 years.
Mr McKenna was chief operations officer of the regional carrier and a close associate of chief executive and main shareholder, Pádraig Ó Céidigh. Neither man was prepared to comment on the departure yesterday, although Mr McKenna said he hoped to stay in the industry long term.
Mr McKenna is one of the most experienced executives at the airline. For the last few years he has been involved in negotiations with host airports and also handled operational issues in Dublin and Galway. He has regularly represented the airline at industry forums and has spoken before Oireachtas committees.
The airline was forced to severely scale back its services into Cork in recent weeks after Ryanair deployed significant capacity to the airport. However Aer Arann did expand its services to the Isle of Man instead.
In May the airline was successful in renewing its tender to operate the Kerry, Galway, Donegal and Sligo public service obligation (PSO) routes. PSO routes qualify for Government subsidies because they would otherwise not be economic.
The company's last set of results - for the year ended 2003 - showed the airline posting operating profits of €2.6 million, up from €934,888 the year before.
