BWIA’S ALEONG RESIGNS

Conrad Aleong, President and Chief Executive Officer of BWIA, officially handed in his resignation yesterday to the Board of Directors of the company. A release from the Board recorded its “deep appreciation and sincere gratitude for the yeoman service rendered by Aleong to the airline.” “Mr Aleong steered the activities of the airline through three years of sustained profitability, while at the same time achieving a modernisation and fleet renewal programme,” it said. When contacted, Corporate Communications Officer at BWIA, Clint Williams, confirmed the reports. However, he refused to say any more, noting that the Board would issue releases as the situation progressed.

Responding to a statement that Prism Services, which is also responsible for Magna Card, has taken over the BWEE Miles account from RBTT, Williams revealed that Prism had indeed been sub-contracted to handle the data analysis of the system, ensuring that it was up-to-date. He said, “We are looking at methods of cutting costs as well as for a system which would offer increased efficiency. Prism already had such a system in place.” A representative of the BWEE Miles centre confirmed these reports, also revealing that BWIA was no longer paying the employees attached to the centre. Prism was now responsible for this. He said, “The decision was made to outsource the programme due to the financial strains of the company.” However, according to a source from RBTT, the bank had, to date, received no information with regards to that statement.

“We have not received any official statement from BWIA thus far,” he said. “There has been nothing concrete. As far as we know, we are still handling the BWEE Miles account.” Williams was unable to respond to this, noting that he needed to look further into the matter. The manager at Prism could not be reached for comment.On March 15, BWEE Miles was relocated from Sunjet House to a new building and a new contact number was released to the public. Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ken Valley’s initial response was that he had no comment. Pressed further, Valley said he was informed that Aleong had resigned since last week while he was in Guyana. He added that he received written confirmation of this yesterday afternoon after he returned from a meeting of the Energy sub-committee. “I have no feelings (about Aleong’s resignation). The important thing is to try and do our best for the airline. My colleague (Keith Rowley) did an excellent job in my absence,” he stated.