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Ryanair COO and ex MAS boss to step down from Irish LCC group says CEO O’Leary
July 12th 2019
Former MAS CEO, Peter Bellew, is to step down as COO of Ryanair in December, the airline’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said in a memo to staff this week that was seen by Reuters. Read More »
Until the surprise announcement, Bellew was expected by many in the industry to take over from O’Leary when the outspoken low-cost carrier pioneer moves up to head of the group’s new structure that will include carriers, Laudamotion and Buzz.
Bellew was Ryanair’s director of operations until he moved to Malaysia Airlines as the carrier’s chief operating officer in late 2014. When Christoph Mueller suddenly resigned only months into his role as MAS CEO, Bellew took over. He returned to Dublin as the chief operating officer of Ryanair in late 2017 at a time when the Dublin-headquartered LCC had cancelled thousands of flights because of staff shortages and crew disgruntlement.
O’Leary said Bellew “has done great work over the last 18 months to improve our operations, renew our engineering team and significantly improve our operations management and on-time performance”.
