New chief executive for Air Seychelles appointed |17 September 2011

Mr Steller, who is expected to take office on October 1, 2011, was previously the chief operating officer of Kenya Airways since 2008 and was in charge of flight operations, ground operations, technical, commercial and network planning, revenue management, operations control and cargo.

He was also employed as the commercial director of Kenya Airways responsible for designing its network and schedule and expanding the Kenyan airline’s Europe-Africa connections and doubling the Asia-Africa traffic.

Prior to joining Kenya Airways, Mr Steller was the vice-president of KLM-Middle East, Central and South Asia, based in Dubai.

He joined the aviation industry in 1975 as a management consultant with KLM and has worked in its in-flight and catering production departments and has served as KLM’s general manager in Cairo and Sweden in addition to KLM’s director for commercial co-operation.

Mr Steller’s work experience in the airline industry has taken him to Jet Airways in Mumbai where he was the executive vice-president commercial and was responsible for networking, scheduling, marketing, sales, cargo, in-flight and ground services.

As the managing director of Trans Maldivian Airways based in Male, Mr Steller changed the airline’s operations into high profitable results with reliability and service and has also worked as the executive director for field services of Nigeria Airways, responsible for its marketing, sales and service network.

Mr Steller’s  professional objective in the airline industry is to manage turnaround, growth and development process and also to encourage a skilled and talented work team.

The out-going executive chairman of Air Seychelles, Maurice Loustau-Lalanne, will hand over the daily operations of the local airline to Mr Steller and will be resuming his post as principal secretary for Foreign Affairs but remains the chairman of the Board of Directors of Air Seychelles.

The deputy chief executive, Garry Albert, will work alongside Mr Steller during his two-year contract with Air Seychelles.
Mr Steller is a Dutch national and is fluent in English, French, German and Dutch.