Finding the ideal airline CEO for our times: latest issue of Airline Leader now available

These can be troubled times for beleaguered legacy airline managements and their workforces. Inertia, always the most powerful force, is not a long-term option in an industry being turned on its head. As the competitive pressures grow, so it seems does the intransigence of employees and their unions. Strains of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests can be heard in this evolution, implying the successful airline CEO's profile must in future be even more focused on relating to human relationships within the company. For new entrants and the high-speed growth markets of Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, innovation is more conspicuous.

A report in the latest edition of Airline Leader, the strategy journal for airline CEOs, seeks to address specifically what characteristics go into making a great airline CEO. As opinion writer Nawal Taneja notes, the quest for the secret is a well-trodden path. But there are specific features that confront an airline leader over and above the common elements of corporate leadership. This was never truer, as an entire industry experiences upheaval.