Tigerair Chief, Merren McArthur, heads up the Boys Aviation Club as Virgin searches for the CEO

M erren McArthur has been at Tigerair Australia for less than three months, but is already listed as a possible successor at the helm of his parent company, Virgin Australia.

Virgin boss John Borghetti announced his decision to leave the airline by the end of next year, leaving Rob McArthur and Virgin 's chief of domestic and international operations, two internal candidates most likely to replace him.

To be successful, she would become the first woman to head one of the two major Australian airlines. In fact, it is a rarity in the global aviation industry, a notorious boys club.

Women make up only 3% of the heads of global airlines and when the board of directors of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) posed for a photo on the occasion of at its annual meeting in Sydney in June, there was only one woman among 26 executives

Adding fuel to the fire, IATA President, Qatar Airways Chief Akbar al Baker, responded to questions by insisting that only a man could run his airline

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McArthur is not bothered by the controversy of IATA. "I had two older brothers," she says. "I've never accepted that because I'm a woman, I should not be supposed to do this or do that." There are events and times when you meet people who are not comfortable with a woman. For me, it is like water in the back of a duck, I will continue to do what I do. "

McArthur says that to achieve a significant change in the gender balance, one needs a break in the cycle.

" If this becomes a male dominated industry, then there are certain expectations on what it is to be a leader in this industry.

"People, by human nature, recruit in their image If you have a lot of male leaders then they will tend to look at other male leaders."

This philosophy could work in the opposite – and in favor of McArthur – as Virgin Australia is conducting its global search to replace Borghetti, who is leaving the airline after eight years at the helm. The research will be led by a woman, Virgin's president, Elizabeth Bryan.

Interrogated a week before the announcement of Borghetti if she has the ambition to run a major airline, McArthur is without commitment. "I do not really have those high goals I'm focusing on, I'm focusing on my current role – it's a pretty big company for me right now." But she adds, "Whatever opportunities, I'll get hold of myself. "

This is certainly what McArthur has done throughout his career.

In the past 10 years, the former lawyer and mother of four daughters has held several executive positions at Virgin Australia: an airline, establishing her cargo division and leading the company's alliance network. Aerial.

Determined to move from law to business, McArthur joined what was then Virgin Blue in 2008, when it was headed by Brett Godfrey. She has always been attracted by the "challenger brands" and Virgin has done the business.

"At this point, Virgin was … relatively young and I really liked how that had changed the aviation market in Australia."

However, neither aviation nor law was McArthur's first career choice. Having grown up in Melbourne with her two brothers and her little sister, she wanted to become a diplomat after a student exchange in South Africa.

Having been informed that it was a good path, she studied arts / law at the University of Melbourne. Although she got good grades, she was not high enough for her job, so she became a reluctant lawyer.

From the beginning, she was attracted to commercial law and eventually worked on some of Victoria's major privatizations. 1990s After 20 years, she wanted to leave the law and badume a commercial role.

It was not as easy as she thought.

The transition of a lawyer

"It was expected that the partners in the law firms do not have the commercial and commercial sense necessary to work in a business environment, "she explains. So when the role of the state's badistant attorney in Western Australia first appeared in 2005, she decided to take it. It was a big decision as she was leaving a well-paying job and was packing her young family – all four girls were still in elementary school – to move to Perth

"When I said to the # As a managing partner I was starting the partnership to go to work in the public service, he almost fell out of his chair, "she said." It was about a quarter of the income. "

After two years, McArthur entered the world of business, working on commercial agreements for Rio Tinto's iron ore division, and a year later she made the jump to Virgin Blue, settling in Brisbane. 19659002] These interstate moves were possible because McArthur's husband is an architect and could work from home.

During his first six months at Virgin, McArthur continued to think "once this particular project or this particular challenge is behind we are going to be there nstaller and he will come back to business as usual, but he never did. "

One of the most grueling periods was during October 2011 The Qantas fleet, when McArthur was responsible for setting up additional Virgin flights to help customers in distress.

But the closest she came to a full career crisis was a year earlier, when she was in the middle of a confrontation between Virgin Australia and the US Department of Transport, which had rejected an alliance proposal between Virgin and Delta Air Lines

McArthur, who was responsible for Virgin's alliance network and head of the Delta Air Lines alliance, was sitting on one side of the airline. 39, a long table, flanked by Borghetti, head of government affairs Jane McKeon and Australian ambbadador to the United States, Kim Beazley. In front of the new headquarters of the department, on the Capitol Hill Road, were two rows of about 16 officials

Virgin's alliance strategy – one of the main elements of the revision of the airline Borghetti – seemed to be in disarray

. "I have not prepared for [the Delta knock-back] at all," she concedes. "Everyone just badumed that it was a slam dunk because we were the two smaller operators on this road.We just expected it to be a yes and ACCC l & rsquo; had already approved. "

To make matters worse, Virgin's alliance with Air New Zealand was dismissed by the Australian competition regulator just a day after Delta's overthrow. "All this in 24 hours," says McArthur. "I thought, oh my god, that's my career."

But McArthur and Virgin managed to turn both decisions around, and this intense period paved the way for its promotion in May to run its low-cost carrier Tigerair. (Air New Zealand changed sides this year, announcing the end of its alliance with Virgin and establishing a code-share partnership with Qantas.)

Stability Research

McArthur does not will not talk about his plans for Tigerair. This is at the beginning and after the interview, she leaves to inform Virgin's board of directors about her strategy. During her first two weeks, she met about 200 employees, about a third of the airline's workforce, crews and pilots.

She was responsible for stabilizing the airline following a regulatory dispute in Indonesia. , which caused the unexpected exit of its road from Bali last year . The result fell by almost 13% in the first half to reach $ 6.7 million as a result.

She takes umbrage at the suggestion that she is at the unholy end of a glamorous industry.

"Low cost does not mean you have to be cheap and nasty," she insists. "For me, I consider it as innovative and offering a good value proposition where people can choose what they want and pay for what they want and maintain the competitiveness of the airline industry."

We return to the subject of the day – be "I have not tried to develop my skills to become a man, but I may have developed my skills to be effective in this environment," she explains

". Sometimes you have to change the way you send a message to make sure you are heard. Importantly, once you feel comfortable in this environment, you can use your femininity to your advantage. I like that a lot. "