James ‘The Disruptor' - Hogan's The Name

Quite like the swashbuckling hero of the 007 movies he shared his first name with James Hogan’s was a class act at Etihad Airways.

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It was no small feat: turning an airline with only 20 airplanes in 2003 to a behemoth with 120 airplanes in a span of 14-odd years. But other than the rise in the number of planes, Hogan turned Etihad into a brand that was strong enough not only to compete with the likes of neighbouring Emirates Airlines and Qatar Airways but also shake up the mighty US Big Three, American, Delta and United.

It is this makeover of Etihad into one of the biggest forces in global aviation that James Hogan will be ‘remembered’ for. His strategy of growth was deceptively simple yet one that made airline CEOs sit up and take notice even though it had been tried earlier. Way back in the 1990s, Swissair had bought minority stakes in the national airlines of Poland and Belgium but the move did not work out. Ultimately in 2002, the airline had to fold up with crippling losses.

It was only in 2011, that Hogan made the first moves. That was after Etihad, the national airline of the UAE reported its first full-year net profit. It was then that the Melbourne-born aviation executive who became the President and CEO of Etihad on September 10, 2006, launched his plan that charted out an ambitious growth for the carrier. Audacious the plan might have been, but it backfired ultimately taking Hogan’s job away in 2017.