Former NGC man a natural for same role at Infratil

Kevin Baker has been appointed chief financial officer at infrastructure and utility assets investor Infratil, two months after resigning from the same role at natural gas and pipelines company NGC.

Baker was chief financial officer at NGC from 1999 until July this year, resigning during the takeover by lines company Vector.

Infratil chief executive Lloyd Morrison said Baker was the first choice candidate from more than 50 applications.

"It would be hard to think of better experience than that Kevin's had for the job," Morrison said.

Baker was not available for comment yesterday and will be starting his new job in mid-October.

Infratil also kept the markets informed of industrial action affecting its Glasgow Prestwick International airport in the UK.

Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings said last week that negotiations had failed with the Air Line Pilots Association for a new collective bargaining agreement covering crew members employed by its subsidiary, Polar Air Cargo.

The association has called a strike at Polar.

Morrison estimated Polar accounted for a quarter of the freight business at the airport, with four scheduled weekly freight services valued between 15,000 ($38,756) and 20,000 ($51,674) gross revenue a week.

Morrison said the impact on the airport depended upon how long the strike lasted and how easily freight could be substituted to other carriers. Some freight may be able to be delayed until services restart.

"There'll be a little bit of interruption of business for a period but we're not expecting it to cause longer term problems for us," he said.

Infratil said yesterday that discussion between Atlas and the Pilots Association was continuing.