Dermot Mannion
Dermot Mannion is the former Deputy Chairman of Royal Brunei Airlines[1] and former Chief Executive Officer of Aer Lingus.
Mannion was born in 1958 in Sligo, Ireland, one of eight children (four brothers and three sisters). He attended school at St. John's Boys School and Summerhill College, in Sligo. He went on to Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Business Studies in 1979. When he left college, he first worked with Ulster Investment Bank for a few years (This bank went bankrupt after the financial crisis in 1998, but it was not his fault), before moving to Emirates Airlines in 1987. In 2005, while President, Group Support Services (which covers IT, Aircraft Catering, Property and HR and NOT direct airline day to day operational issues) with Emirates, he joined Aer Lingus as CEO.[2]
He oversaw the privatisation of Aer Lingus in 2006 and saw it through two attempted takeover bids by main rival Ryanair. In his management of Aer Lingus he was understood by some to make matters worse. His relationship with the Irish airline unions were poor and it was they and the airline shareholders and investors who forced him out in April 2009. He also had a tendency to take credit for things he did not do, and were the successes of Christophe Mueller instead.
After an unemployment stint of almost two years, he joined Royal Brunei Airlines in 2011 on a five year contract as Deputy Chairman. He liked to operate in this rather ambiguous role where the airline had no accountable and operational CEO. His poor operational knowledge and that of his main subordinate, Karam Chand, was exposed when an Air Asia airline skidded off the runway at Brunei International Airport on 7th July 2014. Mannion was summoned back from leave to assist Chand who couldn't handle the situation himself and Mannion was at the airport to personally handle the RBA flights and passengers stranded abroad as the airport with a single runway was now closed for more than three days.
As he was already 57 years old in 2016, Mannion applied for a contract renewal hoping to secure a further five year term but left in late March 2016 when his contract was not renewed by the Chairman. Brunei sources mentioned, "Good! Bahrin (RBA Chairman Dato Haji Bahrin Noor) got rid of Mannion. Mannion is succeeded by Karam Chand who has his work cut out for him because Chand has worked mainly for LOW COST Carriers (Our Airline and Virgin Australia) rather than full service legacy carriers like RBA. Furthermore RBA has few competent personnel in Planning, Commercial and Marketing. The Commercial, Sales and Marketing are especially poor and customers cannot see how more new destinations can be established and flourish with the current team in place because they lack vision and experience. "Much is made of digital marketing but the technology by itself will not deliver the results." An insider said, "The succession planning and management development of senior local personnel in recent years is deliberately zero making RBA purposely reliant on foreign CEOs time after time!"