Association of European Airlines

Athar Husain Khan was born in The Hague to a Pakistani father and a Dutch mother. Because of his father’s work, he spent the first years of his life in the Middle East where he was educated in English and Arabic.

After moving back to The Netherlands he was educated at Dutch primary and secondary schools. He graduated from the University of Leiden with a degree in International Law, and also specialised in Air and Space Law. He subsequently worked as a legal advisor for a transport company and for the Ministry of Education, Sciences and Culture. After a couple of years he joined the Aeropolitical Division of the Ministry of Transport as a negotiator of traffic rights with government authorities all over the world and senior policy advisor on various international issues.

He joined KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in 1998 where he worked in the Flight Operations department as a negotiator on aeronautical charges, project manager for the Millennium Contingency project and as senior manager responsible for the regulatory and policy issues surrounding Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. In July 2002 he was appointed Director of Government & Industry Affairs where he was responsible for the Public Affairs Division, dealing mainly with infrastructure and environment issues, the Air France – KLM merger and European and international aeropolitical affairs.

He joined AEA in 2007 as General Manager Infrastructure, where he was responsible for value chain issues such as the airline – airport relationship, airport charges, airport capacity, slots, ground handling, passenger rights and social affairs. In 2011 he was appointed Deputy Secretary General and as of 1 June 2012 he is the acting Secretary General of AEA.

He is keen on sports (squash, cricket, he ran the New York City marathon three times), holds a private pilot’s license and is interested in relationships between Eastern and Western culture, religion and politics. He is married with one son.

Vincent De Vroey was born in 1971. He holds a Master’s Degree in Electronics Engineering (1988-1993) and a Master’s Degree in Business & Transport Economics (1993-1994) from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).

Vincent has been working as a trainee at Sabena Technics and the European Commission before joining the AEA as Assistant Technical Affairs in September 1995. In 1999 he became manager operations and Air Traffic Management (ATM) with responsibilities to develop AEA policies for flight operations, ATM and engineering and to represent the AEA in various international fora such as the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA), European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Eurocontrol.

On 1st September 2006, Vincent was appointed General Manager Technical & Operations. As part of the AEA Political & Communications Team (PCT), he is responsible for all technical & operational matters at AEA i.e. Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Single European Sky (SES), flight & ground operations, Flight and Duty Time Limitations (FTL), flight & cabin crew crew training, engineering & maintenance and aviation safety.  He is member of Advisory Board of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EAB).  In February 2009, he was elected by the entire EU industry as Chairman of the EAB.  In this capacity, he is currently the EU industry representative to the EASA Management Board. Vincent is since 2007 the civil airspace user representative to the SESAR Joint Undertaking Administrative Board. He is also a Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Aviation Week Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul (MRO) Europe Conference & Exhibition.

In 1988, after ending second in the Flemish competition, Vincent participated for Belgium to the International Chemistry Olympiads in Espoo, Finland. Vincent is a Board Member of the Committee on Aeronautics & Space of the Royal Society of Flemish Engineers (KVIV). Vincent speaks fluent Dutch, French, English and Italian. He has good knowledge of German and some basic knowledge of Spanish. He has a passion for wine-tasting & enology (‘wine-science’) , cycling, backpacking travel to exotic countries and he is a fan of Internazionale Milano FC.

Sue Lockey, General Manager Market Research
Sue is a European of British nationality. She was educated in England, France and the Netherlands before obtaining a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Geography from University College in London.

Following a brief foray into publishing and banking, she joined AEA’s research and information team in 1983, which she now heads as General Manager. The 3-man team provides the statistical backbone to the work of the AEA. It holds responsibility for the production of the vast array of regular AEA data collections and performs research into industry-specific topics in support of the Association’s political messaging.

Sue speaks fluent English, Dutch and French, and has basic understanding of Spanish and German and notions of Turkish. She is a ‘down to earth’ person with an interest in geomorphology and geology. She is married, with two sons.