The move follows the launch of V Australia's new twice-weekly flight from Johannesburg to Melbourne and high customer demand for capacity on Virgin Atlantic Cargo's daily services between Johannesburg and London, and is ahead of the recommencement of seasonal operations between Cape Town and Heathrow Airport on October 31st.
The airline has been represented by general sales agent, ACP Worldwide since it added South Africa to its route network in 1996. However, it has always employed its own operations team in Johannesburg to ensure consistency of the Virgin service in the South African market and to maintain its strict focus on safety and security.
Dan Parker, Vice President Commercial at Virgin Atlantic Cargo, said: 'Even though ACP have represented us fantastically over the last 13 years, we feel that now is the right time to take our presence in the South African market to the next level by employing our own dedicated 'Virgin People', who will be ambassadors for the outstanding service culture and customer experience that is at the very heart of Virgin. This, along with V Australia's new flights from South Africa to Australia, marks the start of a new era for us in South Africa.'
Laurn Baldwin has been appointed Regional Sales Manager, South Africa for Virgin Atlantic Cargo, based in Johannesburg. During her career, she has worked for Aireps, representing Gulf Air, Air Canada, Cathay Pacific, Balkan Airlines, Air Namibia and Aero Zambia. She spent five years with ACP Worldwide, working on the Virgin account, before moving to Expeditors International in 2003 as a Corporate Account Manager.
She is joined in the new Virgin Atlantic Cargo sales team by Jacque Parker, who formally worked for ACP and remains a key face of Virgin Atlantic Cargo. Also joining the team are Contact Centre Advisors Laura Richmond and Saloshni Pillay from ACP and Emirates Airline respectively. To support its growing schedule, Virgin has also increased its operations team in South Africa with the appointment of Cargo Officer, Charles Payne, who joins Douglas MacDougall, Operations Manager.
