Dasburg, former Northwest CEO, to run US DHL Airways
John Dasburg, the former chief executive of Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWAC), is taking to the skies again.
DHL Airways, a closely held company that runs 40 aircraft from its Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky hub, on Tuesday named Dasburg chairman and chief executive, effective April 1.
Dasburg, 60, will replace Joseph O’Gorman, who died in August. Roy Moulton has served as acting chairman at DHL, which provides all-cargo scheduled and charter services on a contract basis for DHL Worldwide Express.
DHL said Dasburg will resign on March 31 from Burger King Corp., the world’s No. 2 fast-food chain, where he serves as chairman. He was Burger King’s chief executive from April 2001 through January 2003. A group of private equity investors led by Texas Pacific Group bought Burger King from British distilled spirits maker Diageo Plc for $1.5 billion in December.
Dasburg was not immediately available for comment.
DHL rivals FedEx Corp. (FDX) and United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) have challenged DHL’s right to operate in the United States, alleging that DHL may have breached a requirement that at least 75 percent of the company be owned by U.S. citizens.
DHL is partly owned by a unit of Germany’s Deutsche Post AG . A DHL spokeswoman said Idaho resident William Robinson owns 55 percent of the company and 75 percent of its voting stock.
Before joining Burger King, Dasburg served 10 years as chief executive at Northwest, during which the carrier grew to become the fourth largest in the United States.
Dasburg’s relations with the airline’s unions, however, grew chilly, culminating in a two-week pilots’ union strike in 1998 that cost the airline $1 billion of revenue.
His image of success was also battered in January 1999 when passengers on a Northwest flight were stranded on a snowy Detroit runway for eight hours. Congress held hearings on airline customer service as a result. REUTERS
