PRB Members

Cathy Mannion

Cathy Mannion’s background is economic regulation as it applies to aviation and utilities. As the Irish Commissioner for Aviation Regulation, she set a price cap limiting Dublin Airport charges, dealt with upholding air passenger rights under EU 261 and the application of aspects of the Package Travel Directive. She was responsible for declaring the slot coordination parameters for Dublin Airport and licensing Irish based air carriers, groundhandlers, travel agents and tour operators. In recent years, Cathy was also the Irish National Supervisory Authority for the purposes of economic regulation of air navigation services under the Single European Sky Regulations. Previously, Cathy worked in the Commission for Regulation of Utilities and was responsible for developing and implementing policy for many aspects of the Irish energy markets including tariffs and the economic regulation of electricity and gas networks.

Estelle Malavolti

Estelle Malavolti has been professor at Ecole Nationale d’Aviation Civile since 2004, and is a researcher at the Toulouse School of Economics. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Toulouse (2002). She has several years of international experience and has received several merit-based grants from the French ministry, Finance and Consumption chair and an individual Marie Curie Research Fellowship. She is specialized in Industrial Organization, applied to air transport markets and competition policy.

Ben Van Houtte

Ben Van Houtte retired from the European Commission in 2018. He worked amongst others in the Competition department, where he was responsible for the air transport liberalization legislation, and in the Transport department, where he headed the “Single European Sky” unit from 2000 through 2007 and initiated the first SES package. Ben studied law and economics in Namur and Leuven (Belgium), obtained a Dr Iur degree in Köln (Germany), an LL.M. degree at Northwestern University (Chicago, USA), and was a Fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center. He worked as an attorney in Chicago and Brussels before joining the Commission in 1984.

Denis Bouvier

Denis Bouvier is a former high ranked officer from the French Air Force having a unique background as en-route controller but as well as air defence and air traffic controller. He has been involved in many operations within and outside the EU with the need to run close civil-military coordination. Apart from being a controller, he acted as: Supervisor of the operational room of a control and reporting centre; Head of the tower of control and deputy of Salon-de-Provence airfield; head of training and standardization of the Surveillance branch of the French AWACS air wing; officer in charge to conduct the operations of the “Charles de Gaulle” aircraft carrier. He acted as: head of European affairs of the French military aviation authority, notably involved in the work of the Single European Sky, including performance and the revision of the legal framework (SESII+), he acted as the military representative in the Single Sky Committee. After an appointment in the MoD strategic affairs he joined the European Defence Agency as SESAR officer and SES Policy Officer. Retired in 2019, he was a consultant charged with drafting the SESAR Common Project 1 and the SESAR Deployment Programme, as well as assessing the impact of U-Space on the military.

Joe Sultana

A graduate engineer started his aviation career as an air traffic controller in Malta. After eight years, he moved into management and by 1991 was the Head of Air Traffic Services in Malta and an Assistant Director of Civil Aviation. Joe joined EUROCONTROL in 1991 and retired after 29 years of service as a senior expert, Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM)  programme manager, Head of Division, Chief Operations Officer within the operational/technical structures of the Agency and between 2011 and 2019, as Director of the Agency and the SES Network Manager. Between 2019 and 2021 he has provided consultancy services to various organisations in Europe and South East Asia and Chairman of the Board of Malta Air Traffic Services. 
       

From 01 June 2023, new PRB Members have been appointed:

Jesper Skou

Jesper Skou started his career as an air traffic controller in Denmark. He holds an e-MBA from 2007. He worked for four years in Switzerland by skyguide as an air traffic controller. After Switzerland, Jesper has had several management positions in the Danish ANSP, Naviair, and in 2010 he was promoted to COO for the integrated ANSP between Denmark and Sweden with headquarter in Stockholm. In 2015, he moved to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as COO and later CEO of Global Air Navigation Services, a private ANSP providing services to several airports in the UAE. Jesper returned to Denmark at the end of 2019 and served as COO of Naviair until October 2020. Today, Jesper co-founded a software company in Denmark and held some board positions.

Juan Montero

Juan Montero is the Director of the Florence School of Regulation- Transport chapter, and Full Professor at UNED (Madrid), with a chair on Administrative Law and Regulation. 
He holds a PhD in European Law from the European University Institute (2001). He has extensively published and lectured on liberalization, competition and regulation in the network industries, mostly transport but also telecoms, postal services and media, as well as the digitalization of infrastructure and new forms of public intervention in digital markets. He has provided legal advice for more than 20 years to transport service providers in regulatory procedures.

Jan Malawko

Jan Malawko graduated from Faculty of Aeronautics. He has been working on various experts', managerial and advisory positions in the Aviation Industry, including Airplane Manufacture, Airline, Airport and Civil Aviation Authority. As Director of LOT Network Planning, he implemented Warsaw Hub operations concept. In the year 2003 as Director of Airport Department of Polish CAA, he introduced ICAO airport’s certification process. During the period 2005-2010 as a GM for Airport Safety and SMS, he was leading the safety supervision during Warsaw Airport major expansion construction works and chaired the Airport Runway Safety Team and Airport Incidents Investigation Team. Recently, he held the position of Airport focal point as a member of EuroControl Performance Review Commission. Currently, he works as an Assistant Professor at the at University of Warsaw, Interdisciplinary Centre of Mathematical and Computational Modelling (ICM).

Eric Nantier

Eric Nantier graduated from Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA-Lyon). He managed several departments at SWISS & SWISSAIR inclusive of the Ops Research & Air Traffic Management and the Operations Control Center for 20 years. Eric was notably responsible for research, strategy, and implementation of several operation solutions such as Crew Management Systems, Ops Control, Dispatch, PAX Flow Management. Preceding his work in the aviation industry he held the position: Director of Steria Zurich (Steria is an IT company carrying out projects in transport, telecommunications, and Bank solution).