Star Alliance has announced that its Australian coordinator, Gordon Young, has decided to retire at the end of the year.
Young joined Star Alliance in early 2014, bringing with him more than 40 years’ experience working for some of the world’s most respected travel and tourism organisations, including American Express and Virgin Australia.
As coordinator for Australia, Young has helped raise Star Alliance’s profile in Australia through a number of trade and consumer marketing promotions, including its ground-breaking sponsorship of AFTA’s National Travel Industry Awards.
In addition, Young found new ways to enhance Aussie travel agents’ understanding of Star Alliance’s products and services through a broad range of training programs and incentive campaigns.
Rick Pomery, chair of Star Alliance’s country steering committee, said Young’s passion and determination have been “nothing short of inspirational”.
“As well as an unrivalled ability to build enduring relationships, Gordon has a rare gift for recognising opportunities and delivering outcomes that inevitably exceed expectations,” Pomery said.
“Nothing better epitomises his success than Star Alliance’s dazzling promotions at the National Travel Industry Awards, which each year found new and canny ways to ensure no one shone brighter than Star Alliance on the travel industry’s night of nights.
“There is no doubt that as a result of these efforts – which have been recognised across the Star Alliance world – Star Alliance has never been more respected or enjoyed a greater presence in the Australian marketplace.”
In other news, the airline alliance is moving all of its IT infrastructure to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to reduce costs, enhance performance and become a more agile company.
Star Alliance is working with Tata Consultancy Services to migrate all of its data, platforms, and business-critical applications to AWS and close its data centres, which will reduce its infrastructure total cost of ownership by 25 per cent.
