Commercial and operational manager for Premia announced (02/08/2007)

British Airways World Cargo has announced the appointment of Hakan Kalkanoglu as commercial and operational manager for its premium business, effective immediately.

Reporting to general manager London Operations Mark Gardiner, Kalkanoglu will be responsible for generating premium traffic and managing the daily operations through Premia, the carrier's premium facility at Heathrow that opened in September 2006.

Kalkanoglu has held numerous roles at BA World Cargo since joining in 1995 including service delivery manager, Frankfurt; quality and conformance manager Germany; director of customer services, New York and director of customer services, Eastern USA.

Most recently, Kalkanoglu was area sales manager southeast Americas, delivering regional sales targets and working with local operations to built long-term customer relationships and ensure continued business growth in the region.

Earlier in the year, BA World Cargo increased its shorthaul freighter services by 40 percent to deliver a total of 45 weekly widebody services across 11 European destinations. In addition, the carrier also launched two new weekly Boeing 727 freighter routings from Pakistan (Karachi - Bahrain and Lahore - Bahrain) in June 2007.

Commenting on his appointment, Kalkanoglu said: "The premium business is one of our key focus areas and offers us exciting revenue and growth potential. I am relishing the opportunity to manage this state-of-the-art premium handling facility and to grow the premium business in conjunction with our global commercial team."

Mark Gardiner said: "Hakan brings extensive operational and sales management experience to this role which will be invaluable as we continue to develop all aspects of our premium business for the benefit of customers across BA World Cargo's global network."