Shakeel combines line management and leadership experience across operations, commercial and finance to provide commercial and strategic leadership advice to executives, boards and government. With extensive knowledge of aircraft types and performance, network profitability, alliances and operational cost efficiency, Shakeel specialises in enhancing commercial competitiveness of airlines with a particular specialty in restructuring, turnaround and performance improvement.

Before Athena Aviation, Shakeel was the aviation lead for a global advisory firm and he led the global airline restructuring and commercial practices at Lufthansa Group. Prior to this, he was a Director in Operations with Air Canada. A licensed pilot, he began his aviation career as a design engineer at Bombardier Aerospace. In addition to aviation, Shakeel was the interim President & CEO of an oil & gas start-up with operations in Russia, and worked with a US-based boutique strategy consultancy.

Specialties

• Commercial and Corporate Strategy
• Alliance and partnership strategy and planning
• Network strategy and fleet planning
• Cost reduction programme development
• Commercial and operational restructuring
• Turnaround planning and management
• Mergers and acquisitions road-mapping
• Carve-out and spin-off strategy
• Organisation design and staff reductions
• Efficient group structures and governance

• Organisation redesign, establishment of performance management system at fast-growing African flag carrier
• Assessment of a leading Asian airline’s state of readiness for the move to origin/destination revenue management
• State of readiness review for entry into the oneworld global alliance at Russia’s largest domestic airline
• Alliance strategy / planning for European regional airline
• Crisis management / assessment of LCC in Russia
• Initial commercial management review of a top 50 airline
• Assessment of commercial performance at regional airline
• Survival planning / restructuring of Boeing 747 cargo airline
• Pre-privatisation restructuring roadmap for 2nd largest airline in the Middle East
• Post-privatisation restructuring of Eastern European airline, incl. merger & carve-out of non-core businesses
• Restructuring of state-owned airline in the Caribbean
• Advised a North American PE firm on the business case for investments into two airlines and an engine MRO
• Business simplification at top 15 airline
• Ran business process simplifications in ground handling, in-flight, catering, flight operations and maintenance

Languages

• English - Fluent
• German - Basic conversational