Industry & Services >> CEO Interviews >> February 8, 1999
DAVID SAVILE is Managing Director of Air London. He entered the aviation
industry in 1979 when he joined a small aircraft charter broker rising
rapidly to take charge of one of its two offices following expansion. He
moved to Air London in January 1983 and within four months, as the
company surrendered its air taxi flying licences to concentrate on
developing its broking business. Mr. Savile was instrumental in
introducing computerisation. The company has since grown from just three
to 85 staff and in the last three years has established offices in
France, Germany and the USA. As operations director, Mr. Savile played a
key role in organising Air London's flotation on the Unlisted Securities
Market in 1989 which was followed by a full Stock Exchange flotation in
1995. During his 15 years with Air London, Mr. Savile has organised
thousands of flights around the world for a wide variety of reasons. In
1990 he led a team which organised flights to evacuate 1,500 expatriates
from the Gulf with just 24 hours' notice. When war broke out he also
negotiated L7 million worth of business for the Ministry of Defence
flying supplies to troops three times a day non-stop for three months.
Government links were developed and led to on-going business flying
ministers, prime ministers and members of Royalty world-wide. Unusual
flights arranged by Mr. Savile have included the organisation of the
world's air ambulance when a DC10 flew from Europe to airlift 20 burn
victims from Nigeria to the USA, and a programme of humanitarian flights
for the United Nations in support of Kurds on the Iraq/Turkish border.
Mr. Savile was appointed managing director of Air London in 1997 when he
took over day-to-day control of the company. He is married with three
children. Profile
your business, today?
Mr. Savile: The company is 38 years old. Until 1983, it traded as an air
operation. From 1983, we
