Air Malta has announced the appointment of Dr Brock Friesen as Chief Officer Commercial.

Dr Friesen will be working under the direction of chief executive officer Joe Cappello and will be responsible for organising, directing and controlling all the operations of the Commercial Division with the specific task of increasing revenue for the airline.

Dr Friesen has been engaged from outside the organisation and brings with him over 20 years of senior international airline management experience in most aspects of commercial operations.

Dr Friesen joins Air Malta from Star Alliance, a major global airline alliance, where he was vice president, Finance and Strategy. Prior to Star Alliance in Frankfurt, Dr Friesen was also a vice president with Canadian Airlines International in Vancouver (now merged with Air Canada).

His various executive positions at Canadian included international marketing, international planning and alliances. Dr Friesen’s background includes business strategy, marketing and sales, revenue planning and forecasting, restructuring, network planning, fleet optimisation, changing airline business models, and traffic rights negotiations.

Earlier in his career, Dr Friesen was a Senior Energy Policy Advisor with the Government of British Columbia.

Canadian-born Dr. Friesen is a PhD graduate of the University of Waterloo in Canada and has an MBA from IMD in Switzerland. He has lectured at university level on energy and natural resources economics and invented and patented the first single-engine hovercraft. Dr Friesen is married with one daughter and is a keen sailor.