Article in the Australian --- I wonder when is the SP going to move
---------------------------------------------------- Virgin poaches key Qantas staff to fight corporate class war Damon Kitney From: The Australian May 31, 2011 12:00AM Increase Text Size Decrease Text Size Print Email Share Add to Digg Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Kwoff Add to Myspace Add to Newsvine What are these? VIRGIN Australia has hired another former Qantas executive to head up a new information services division, as chief executive John Borghetti pushes ahead with his "Game Change" program to snare more business travellers.
Former Qantas chief information officer Segar Reddy will run the new division, formed by the merger of Virgin's business systems design and development division and the information technology division.
"These changes are necessary for us to effectively provide IT services to support the evolving Virgin Australia business model," Virgin chief financial officer Sankar Narayan said.
Mr Reddy takes over from Virgin's former chief information officer David Harvey, who is leaving the airline.
Mr Narayan is also setting up a separate team within Virgin to guide the planning and implementation of the systems required to support Mr Borghetti's Game Change program.
While Mr Reddy's appointment is not related to problems last year with Virgin's Navitaire reservations system, his hiring will further bolster the airline's credentials in the IT space.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. Mr Borghetti, himself a former long-serving Qantas executive, has hired a string of former Qantas employees to help implement his plan to move Virgin more up-market in a bid to double its share of high-yielding business travellers.
His key poachings so far have included Jane McKeon, Will Owens and Hope Antzoulatos.
Ms McKeon, who was general manager of government and international relations at Qantas for more than 10 years, now runs Virgin's airline's government relations team. Mr Owens, Qantas's former head of pricing, has taken over as Virgin head of yield management. Ms Antzoulatos is Virgin's head of network for domestic and international operations, and 40-year Qantas veteran Roger Lindeman has also moved to Virgin as general manager service experience.
Virgin last week started flying A330 jets between Sydney and Perth featuring its new domestic business class.
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