SHIRLEY Williams, the newly appointed chairman of the national airline, Air Jamaica, says there is no rush to find a chief executive officer (CEO) to replace Mike Conway who resigned last week, as the board might leave the selection of a new head to the private entity the national carrier is seeking to partner with.

The airline’s board, said Williams, would be meeting soon to decide if it should wait on the new partner, which will relieve the government of Air Jamaica’s liabilities, to bring in their own expertise. She, however, would not say if the airline had yet identified a partner.

The ruling Jamaica Labour Party, in its election manifesto for the September 3 polls, said it would seek “an equity partnership with a suitable international airline to revitalise Air Jamaica and to integrate it within a wider network of destinations and connections”.

“I am not concerned about any immediate need to find a CEO because we are very stable at this time,” Williams told the Observer.

The new Air Jamaica Board, Williams said, had not yet met officially as some members were only just receiving their letters, but said the matter of a new CEO and operating partner would be high on the agenda when the first meeting is held sometime this week.

Until then, she said, the company could operate without a CEO as all the various departments were being managed by competent persons.

“We are covered because there are vice-presidents at each level heading up different departments and there is a chief financial controller and the entire finance department is under the supervision of the accountant general, who is Militant Hughes,” the Air Jamaica chairman said. Hughes is also among the 12-member board recently appointed.

In the meantime, Williams sought to give the assurance that there was no instability among the staff, especially in the western end of the island where staff members, last Thursday, protested against Conway’s resignation, claiming that he was pressured into quitting the job he held for the last two years.

“I met with the unions and representative (of the workers), which was very productive and at the end we left on very good terms. so everything is stabilised now,” she said.

Meanwhile, Williams declined to speak on the controversial sale of the Kingston/London route to Virgin Atlantic or the code share agreement, both of which Transport Minister Mike Henry said were being put on hold, although Virgin is now preparing to starting flying into Kingston from London.

“I am not commenting on that London route because we are looking at everything on the route, all the figures and everything that was done and we are in discussions and we would like to leave it out of the media and out of the public sphere for the moment,” she said.

In May, Air Jamaica announced that it would discontinue its service to London, effective October 28, and enter into a code-share agreement with Virgin Atlantic, under which the Air Jamaica code would be placed on all Virgin Atlantic flights between Jamaica and London Gatwick.

The sale of the national carrier’s lucrative landing and gate slots at Heathrow International Airport in London to Virgin Atlantic also formed part of the deal which sparked controversy.

On June 1 of this year, then finance minister, Dr Omar Davies, announced that Jamaica had earned £5.1 million (US$10.2 million) from the sale, but said that the deal was still being negotiated.

Davies said that Air Jamaica lost US$27 million on the London route in 2006, and that projections were that the figure would have exceeded US$30 million in 2007.