Opodo, a leading pan-European online travel portal has today announced that David Scowsill is to become its new Chief Executive Officer.

Scowsill has an impressive travel and aviation record allied to broad retail experience. After 13 years at British Airways, where he held various customer service, sales and marketing roles in Europe, USA, Latin America and the Middle East, he moved to American Airlines where he became Managing Director for European sales. He then rejoined British Airways in 1993 as Regional General Manager Asia/Pacific, before being appointed Director Europe/Middle East. He joined the Board of Hilton International in 1997 as Senior Vice-President Sales, Marketing and IT, moving on to the Minit Group in 1999 as their CEO. His comes to Opodo from Orange, where he was Managing Director of the Consumer Division from September 2001.

Commenting on his appointment Scowsill said: "I am pleased and excited to have the opportunity of working within the travel industry again. I have watched Opodo's impressive and rapid growth with considerable interest. It is clear that Opodo is uniquely placed to deliver a superb online travel product to leisure and business consumers, as well as providing a low cost distribution service that will benefit the airline, hotel and car rental suppliers. I will work closely with David Coltman, newly appointed Chairman, the Board and Opodo's excellent team to ensure Opodo achieves its vision of becoming "the European travel agent of choice for customers and product providers".

Scowsill will take up his CEO role at Opodo from 23 September 2002.

About David Scowsill

After Stowe school he attended Southampton University where he gained a BA Hons Degree in Spanish. He joined British Airways in 1978 and carried out a variety of operational and sales roles around the world, before returning to London to manage the 'Putting the Customer First' programme and to oversee BA's entry into Heathrow's Terminal 4. His next roles included:

General Manager, South America, based in Caracas
Vice President Sales and Marketing, Latin America/Caribbean, based in Miami
General Manager Sales and Marketing, Northern Europe, based in Amsterdam
Regional General Manager Europe, based in London

In 1991 he joined American Airlines as Managing Director, European Sales when American purchased the transatlantic route rights from TWA and launched a major European operation. He established new sales, call centre and distribution strategies, changed the marketing approach and raised the airline's profile through major sponsorship deals throughout Europe.

He returned to British Airways in 1993 as Regional General Manager Asia/Pacific, establishing the first global airline alliance with Qantas, before becoming Director Europe/Middle East with responsibility for Deutsche BA in Germany and TAT/Air Liberte in France.

He joined the Hilton Group plc in 1997 as Senior Vice-President Sales, Marketing and Information Technology, driving a step change in the approach to sales and marketing. He led the Hilton brand re-unification programme and various joint venture companies - Hilton.com, Hilton HHonors and Hilton Reservation Worldwide.

He moved to the retail services business, Minit Group plc, as Chief Operating Officer in 1999, becoming CEO a year later. He joined Orange in September 2001 as Managing Director Consumer Division, with responsibility for the personal and small business area.

Scowsill is 46, married with three children and lives in Middlesex. He is fluent in Spanish and French

About Opodo
Opodo launched its first site www.opodo.de in Germany in December 2001, its UK site www.opodo.co.uk in January and its French site www.opodo.fr in April 2002.

Opodo is an online travel service created by nine of Europe's leading airlines - Aer Lingus, Air France, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa and Amadeus. Opodo addresses the real needs of today's traveller by offering an unbiased and competitively priced online travel service for world travel, with access to flights from over 400 airlines, 30,000 hotel properties and a worldwide fleet of over 750,000 hire cars, as well as travel insurance.
Opodo will launch throughout Europe during 2003 and beyond.

Further information about Opodo is available at www.opodo.com

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