Des began his career with British Airways in 1970. During 14 years at the airline he held several management positions including Cargo Manager Gulf States and Saudi Arabia in the early ‘80s. In 1984, he established and managed his own forwarding business before joining Air Canada. His next move was to ground handling company Menzies Aviation where he served as Chief Executive at Air Menzies International (AMI) and Managing Director Menzies World Cargo. He was Executive Vice President Cargo for Etihad from April 2007 and, prior to that, Head of Cargo at rival Gulf Air. He retired in 2014 as Global Head of Cargo, IATA.

Adrian Dunne has worked in the aviation and ground handling industry since 1989 in the UK and Ireland. Prior to his current appointment, he led the restructuring of ground operations at Aer Lingus in the wake of the 9/11 events. In his present role, Adrian is responsible for Ryanair’s ground operations at its 87 bases and 130 airports, including operational performance, ground handling procurement, policies, procedures, airport systems, compliance and safety, and is the nominated post holder for ground operations.

Robert has been Ramp and Ground Handling Manager at Heathrow Airport for nearly three years. He leads the ramp assurance team which includes ramp safety, ground handling and aviation fuel to drive safety, compliance and performance of ground handling service providers and other licensed service providers. He also sets ground handling policy, acting as the accountable manager for the Ground Operations Licence. Before this, he was Ground Handling and Aviation Fuel Manager at Heathrow where he enabled the ramp operations & wider airside team to improve the safety, compliance and overall performance of ground handling service providers and other licenced service providers. Prior to his positions at Heathrow, he worked for British Airways for more than eight years, where his roles included Business Implementation Manager and Manager Contracted Services.

After 15 years at British Airways in various Finance, strategy, commercial and Airport Operations roles Steve Allen joined the Emirates Group in 2008 as Vice President Operations for dnata. Allen then led the Emirates Group internal consulting division for 5 years before taking over as Head of dnata’s UAE Airport Operations in 2016.