Northwest Adds Customer Service

<B> Northwest Adds Customer Service</B>

By Jay Campbell


Following the resignation of Michael Levine, senior vice president of marketing and international, Northwest Airlines this month announced a number of changes in the sales and marketing units that once reported to him.

Fay Beauchine has replaced John Temple as vice president of sales and gained responsibility for customer relations, while Temple moved to the leisure side as the new vice president and general manager of Northwest subsidiary MLT Inc.

Beauchine, a 20-year Northwest veteran, will report to Philip Haan, executive vice president of international, sales and information services. Haan joined J. Timothy Griffin, executive vice president of marketing and distribution, and Douglas Steenland, executive vice president and general counsel, in assuming Levine's duties on Feb. 1. All three executives report to president and CEO John Dasburg.

Beauchine will manage all corporate and agency sales, as well as the domestic field sales force, for Northwest and KLM. She also is responsible for customer relations, including a "new customer resolution group that will assist with service problems and issues."

She previously was vice president of reservations sales and services, including all services to individual customers who contact the airline by telephone or purchase tickets at city ticket offices. The chair of the Greater Minneapolis Convention and Visitors Bureau, she also was named one of the 25 most influential travel executives by BTN in 1987 and 1988 for her work in Northwest's meetings and incentives area and as president of the Society of Incentive Travel Executives.

"We have worked hard over the past several years to develop the depth so we can promote from within Northwest to fill many of our future critical leadership needs," said Dasburg. "These executives represent very good examples of our successful succession-planning efforts. They are outstanding sales and marketing professionals and the right people to lead their respective areas in the future."

Levine, who will retire on Feb. 28, joined Northwest as executive vice president of marketing and sales in 1992 after holding numerous positions in the airline industry, academia and government. Said Dasburg, "Mike Levine has made an enormous contribution as a pioneer in the development of airline alliances, by building a world-class marketing department and by helping to develop a strategic direction for Northwest."

Levine, recognized by many insiders as one of the founders of airline deregulation and among the brightest minds in the airline business, expects to return to teaching, writing and consulting.