São Paulo – Dubai’s Emirates Airline has found its new director-general for Brazil among the ranks of competitor Etihad Airways. The French-born Stephane Perard served as Network manager for Etihad and has left the Abu Dhabi-based company to take charge of Emirates’ Brazilian operations.
According to information released this Monday (2nd), Perard is assuming his position today, ten days short of the opening of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, which Emirates sponsors. According to a statement released by Emirates, Perard has worked in the aerospace industry for over ten years. He is married to a Brazilian woman and has lived for the past seven years in Abu Dhabi, where the Etihad headquarters are located. He had been a manager at the company since 2012.
In a statement released by Emirates, Perard said Brazil is a strategic market for the airline, and that he plans on continuing to develop its operations in the country. Regarding the World Cup, he said he “could not have joined the team at a more exciting time.” The director-general post, which will be filled by Perard, had been vacant since January this year, after Ralf Aasmann left the company.
Emirates has two commercial flights a day to Brazil. The airline has been operating its Dubai-São Paulo route since 2007. Since January 2012, it has also been flying a route between Dubai and Buenos Aires, with a layover in Rio de Janeiro. Flights to both destinations employ 354-seat, three-class configuration aircraft. According to the company, it has carried over 1 million passengers on its routes to Brazil.
Apart from commercial flights, the airline’s cargo division has been flying to Brazil since November 2010. Emirates Sky Cargo flights leave from Viracopos Airport, in Campinas, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The Monday flight has layovers in Quito, Ecuador, and Amsterdam, Netherlands, before arriving in Dubai. The remaining flights leave Brazil headed for Dakar, Senegal, then Frankfurt, Germany, and finally Dubai.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
