Nigel Turner FCMA Chief executive, BMI

Your industry is hugely competitive and recent fuel price hikes and green taxes have put sonne airlines out of business. Hovif is BMI coping? BMI is the oldest purely commercial airline in existence - others may be older, but they've been in and out of state ownership or sponsorship. Since we started in 1938 we've always relied on ticket sales and other revenues to pay our bills. I've been with the company for 20 years and, although it has changed, its fundamental characteristics remain; we're independent, not part of the establishment and we differentiate ourselves on operational integrity - ie, we arrive on time and we don't lose bags. This isn't particularly glamorous, but if's what customers want. All industries are competitive - there are no easy meal-tickets out there. But aviation is particulariy tough because fuel prices have reached unprecedented levels and there is gross oversupply in the market. So many state airlines make a loss year after year but stay in business because they are seen as a symbol ot a nation's viriiity - part of foreign policy. Since 1948, when our trade body, the International Air Transport Association, was set up, its members have iost more than they have made. So our playing field is not only not level; it's on a steep gradient. But there's no point in moaning about it. Thousands of other people would do this job if I didn't want it. To what extent can airlines hedge against fuel price increases? Some of them buy fuei in advance and some don't, and the amounts they buy vary. BMI has a long tradition of hedging, but ail it does is put off the evil day Fuel is now $1,300 a tonne, compared with $800 a tonne last year. But then you need to decide whether you should hedge for next year by buying at the current price - will prices rise further or will they crash? All hedging does is buy certainty of price, but it's still inherently risky. What about other threats, such as the economic downturn? People will still want to travel. There are two reasons why demand may decline. The first is that if people are concerned about falling house prices and rising bills they may go from four city breaks a year to two, or deoide not to visit family in Australia next summer. The second is if FDs start banning employees from flying to encourage them to use cheaper communication methods such as videoconferencing. It goes in cycles: people cut costs from time to time, but eventually it changes back again. For example, some flying bans actually end up costing firms money because face-to-face business works better and they start losing sates. How do you deal with the environmental lobby and questions about airlines' greenhouse gas emissions? Green issues are presented too simplistioally and the British public are more sophisticated than they're often given credit for - they know that if you want to travel you are going to burn fuel. It's important that finance people start balancing all the different green costs and not only registering the obvious ones. For example, taking the train up to

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People may say that they want green flights, but when it comes aown to it they always ohoose on prioe

Scotland for an afternoon meeting may not cost less in terms of carbon emissions if it means that you spend the night in a hotel up there when you could have flown both ways in a day. It's an issue that CIMA members should be tackling in their organisations. Of course, we do treat the environment with reverence - we're humans, too, after all. It also makes economic sense. The less fuel we burn, the cheaper it is to run an airline. We've been seeking efficiency for the past 40 years; it's in our interests. Aircraft are made lighter all the time, which makes them more efficient, but we won't go from 100 to zero over night. We'll go from 100 to 90, then from 90 to 70. Progress is always incremental. People may say that they want green flights, but when it comes down to it they always choose on price. We don't need rules to tell us that the less fuel we burn, the better it is for the environment. Too often rules actually encourage perverse behaviour. There has been much speculation that Lufthansa may exercise its option of buying Sir Michael Bishop's shares and

so become the main shareholder in BMI. BMI is speculated about more than other airlines because we are privately owned with only three shareholders: our chairman, Michael Bishop, who owns 50 per cen plus one share; Lufthansa; and SAS. We're all used to living with this speculation, but we can't waste time guessing what might happen; we have an airline to run. The same challenges will exist for us to deal with, whoever owns the business in the future. What was the biggest challenge that you dealt with last year? That would be our takeover of BMED, which we bought in 2007 from BA, giving us a new range of destinations in central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. We managed the integration in eight months on budget, which was a remarkable achievement - project management is one of the most underrated skills. Everyone always wants to do the giamorous deal part and not the hard graft of making the integration work. But we got there and I was extremely pleased about this. There were so many things that could have gone wrong and none of them did, You were quoted widely in the press after the chaos at Heathrow's fifth terminal led to BA's decision to delay ts full move to the new building. I was surprised at the T5 situation. Then I was annoyed when it prevented BA's move, which aftected our business. All I could do about it was express my annoyance. It means I've lost my new terminai for a year and that's impossible to put a price on. The problems at T5 trashed the reputation of Heathrow and made the industry look silly But, far more importantly, it has put back the new terminal by a year and I still have to honour our obligations. You were CFO before you became chief executive. Did you find it hard to let go of the finances? All CEOs look at the figures, but I spend far less time doing this now than ( used to. Most of my time is spent thinking about sales, marketing, our strategic direction and

external relationships. I'm completely cured of the fifiance side and my CFO is extremely competent. Chief executives with a CFO background have an advantage in that they understand the numbers and the corporate structure, but the worst nightmare is the chief executive who doesn't let go of finance. No CFO worth their salt would stay there in that case. Did you always want to work in aviation? It was a complete fluke - I just saw the advert and applied. My background was in retail. I didn't even fly until I was 21 and the week before I joined BMI at 29 I took my third flight. It wasn't that I was from a particuiarly poor family; we simply didn't fly as much back then. Now my children think there's something wrong if they don't fly everywhere. That's where cheap flights have been a great thing, because it has meant that flying is no longer for the privileged few. The nastier side of the anti-flying campaigns is the snob factor: it sometimes feels like it's the middle classes wanting to keep destinations to themselves. Why did you become an accountant? Mainly because I was unemployed in 1980. It was the time of the miners' strike and there were no jobs in Nottingham for graduates, It was a difterent world from how it is today No one aged under 35 has had any experience of the devastating effects of recession and unemployment. I did my CIMA training in evening classes at Leeds Poly {now Leeds Metropolitan University). Why did you choose CIMA? I was more comfortabie with the qualification because I felt it was more me. I used to wonder where all the accountants went, because thousands of us were trained and there are relatively few CFOs, but now I realise that many move on to other things, just as 1 have. CIMA accountants tend to be fine on the P&L but they also need to focus on the technical finance side, which isn't fashionable at the moment. You don't get to run a big business unless you understand balance sheets, cash flows, reconciliations and so on. CIMA accountants with strong technical abilities have the potential to be phenomenal.

Graduates from the University of Sheffield with a degree in business studies and takes the post of trainee accountant at tailors J Hepworth & Son, which becomes Next in 1981.

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turner is recruited by Northern Foods, where he works as a company accountant in various food factories. "I am very grateful for my time there. It was an excellent company and gave me great experience and training," he recalls.

Starts as a cost and budget accountant at British Midland Airways. He becomes finance director in 1992, CFO in 1997 and chief executive in 2004.

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