SITA announces appointment of new Regional Vice President for Middle East & Turkey

As Regional Vice President, Mr. Hani El Assaad will draw upon his strong regional knowledge and long-standing experience in working with and catering to the diverse needs of the aviation industry. In his new role, Mr. El Assaad will put into action his previous responsibilities for building and growing the SITA business and meeting air transport customer requirements.

"With our innovative products, unique services, brilliant people and worldwide clients, I will strive to continue positioning SITA as the worlds leading service provider of IT business solutions and communications services to the air transport industry," said Mr. Hani El Assaad, Regional Vice President Middle East and Turkey. "

Mr Hani El Assaad joined SITA in 1995 as Sales Manager for the Middle East region. Since then he moved to Regional Sales Director in 1998, followed by the role of Regional Vice President for Middle East and Africa in 2001. Mr. El Assaad holds a Master in Economics from St Josephs University Beirut Lebanon and holds an MBA from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) in Montreal.

In 2005, SITA performed outstandingly in supporting the air transport community. Both the applications services and the communications services businesses exceeded their new business target by 30 percent, with SITA reporting aggregated revenues of $1.554 billion.

Part of the recent SITA restructure included the implementation of the new Sales and Relationship Management (SRM) organisation currently being put into place to provide customers with the 'one SITA face' for all commercial and customer support service management. The SITA restructure has been placed across a total of nine regions assisting to help manage sales, account management and customer service management, which means a quick response service and a better client - customer relationship.

"Using this approach our regional staff will remain close to our clients, empowered to make all decisions necessary to respond to client requirements efficiently and effectively," explains Mr. Hani El Assaad.

Below are some facts and figures in relation to the growing Aviation and Airports industry in Middle East region;

• Passengers passing through airports - In December 2005 alone, the Middle East reported an increase of 19.2%—more than three times the industry average (6.1%) compared to the same period in 2004.(Source SITA Report)
• Of all the world's regions, it is the Middle East which has shown the strongest average annual increase in tourism arrivals over the past five years. Since 2000, it has averaged 8.8 per cent a year against 7 per cent for Asia and the Pacific, 5.4 per cent for Africa, 2.3 per cent for Europe and just 0.8 per cent for the Americas...(Source WTO Statistics World Tourism Barometer Volume 4, No 1, January 2006)
• More than $40 billion worth of airport developments currently is taking place across the Middle East on the back of a booming regional economy.
• Regional airport growth is accelerating rapidly to cope with the huge projected increase in commercial air traffic, while record oil prices and booming regional economies have enabled Middle East governments to allocate billions of dollars for infrastructure development.