Meet the MIDAS Team.
MIDAS are a small team of highly networked experts with decades of combined aviation industry experience. We have a number of associates who work closely with us, from different parts of the world, enhancing our core offering. This enables us to maintain low overheads, continue to be the primary individuals delivering for our clients, and still able to access additional expertise where needed.
MIDAS Aviation
Founders
John Grant
I ‘stumbled’ into aviation and some would say am still stumbling my way through! An opportunity to play cricket around the world whilst working for an airline seemed too good an opportunity to miss. But once I’d started and worked through the basics of airline revenue accounting, fare calculations, three letter airport codes and seen how the business work it became a fascinating opportunity for a career in which I’ve met and been inspired by some amazing experiences.
I’ve been fortunate to work across every part of the aviation sector, market research, marketing (oh those Caledonian Girls!), commercial planning, sales, network planning, major airline rebrand, airport operations and business transformation. In all of those exciting roles the one thing I have learnt is the power and knowledge that a good awareness of data brings, great data provides great insight and power; and to those that taught me that lesson, thank you!
I’m really looking forward to using all that experience to make a difference for clients and customers in the coming years and to grow your businesses.
Suzy McIntosh
Suzy joined MIDAS in 2022 and has a deep love of data and analytics, combined with a passion for the aviation industry. After her family, she also loves horses and a peak moment was working on an equestrian terminal project with MIDAS. Prior to joining the team, Suzy has almost 15 years of industry experience with 8 years at OAG where latterly she was Product Director of Analytics. In this role she was responsible for managing the Analyser suite of products as well as developing the strategy for the next generation of analytics products. Prior to OAG Suzy worked at Monarch Airlines in their Analytics Team creating business rules to automate their Revenue Management system AirRM as well as producing weekly reports for the Senior Management Team. Before this Suzy worked for the airlines British Midland (bmi) and bmibaby for 5 years in Revenue Management and Network Planning. In Network Planning at bmi Suzy was involved in generating 5 year plans for bmi’s route network, analysing data for potential new routes and producing new route business cases.
Suzy has a MSc in International Tourism from the University of Lincoln and BSc in Mathematics with Business from Nottingham Trent University.
Deirdre Fulton
Aviation beckoned early. Summers spent making tannoy calls and manning an airport information desk meant I caught the aviation ‘bug’ at the start of my career. This led to operational and then commercial roles at BAA’s airports in Scotland. Several data heavy jobs later, I found myself adept at interpreting and analysing the numbers then communicating their meaning, often to key decision makers both internally and externally.
As BAA’s dominance of the UK Airport industry began to change, I turned to freelance consulting and have been kept busy on global airport projects ever since. I can’t imagine ever leaving the industry, and there’s still a part of me that misses those operational days so I take great delight in hanging out at airports when I can – much to my family’s dismay!
A typical day might involve writing a piece about how a market is responding post pandemic or crunching numbers to provide an airport investor with insights as to how a market might develop in the long term. Organising things comes naturally to me and I love the challenge of turning round a piece of work and helping clients to move their businesses forward.
Consultants
Stephen O’Reilly
Stephen joined MIDAS in 2022 and brings 15 years of aviation industry experience to the team. Able to turn his hand to many things, his focus has been on air service development and this has allowed him to develop his analytical expertise from generating compelling business cases for airline route development. Before joining MIDAS Stephen as an Airline Business Development Manager for 9 years at Dublin Airport, part of the team responsible for growing traffic at the airport and expanding the route network. In that time the airport grew traffic by over 50% to record levels and developed the first direct service from Ireland to Asia-Pacific. The role included developing airport strategies, data analysis for business cases to develop new routes and strong engagement with external stakeholders, particularly tourism authorities and business associations, to develop sustainable traffic growth.
Prior to that role, Stephen worked as Aviation Business Development Analyst, a Market Intelligence role to deliver traffic reports, market reports and monitor traffic budgets for the airport. The role also involved working on business cases for new routes.
He earned his Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing and Management from Technological University Dublin and a Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin.
MIDAS Aviation Associates
-
![]()
Jon Woolf
Jon is a highly experienced and delivery focussed airport Business Development specialist, with extensive international operating experience. Before joining the MIDAS team, he most recently led Dublin Airport’s Aviation Business Development Team between 2011 and 2024. His team grew the Dublin Airport airline customer base from 23 to 52 carriers between 2013-2023, at the same time increasing annual passenger throughput from 16m to 33m. Prior to that Jon held a key position in a global aviation consulting business advising airports and investors and he was also worked for airlines and airports during his extensive industry career.
-
![]()
Hannah Pearson
Hannah is based in Kuala Lumpur and specialises in the Southeast Asian tourism industry. In 2018, she launched her boutique tourism consulting company, Pear Anderson. Hannah has travelled extensively across Southeast Asia and has deep first-hand insight into the region and its development. Hannah has authored reports and whitepapers on tourism and is a regular speaker at prestigious travel conferences such as ITB Asia. Her reports have been cited in publications such as Forbes Middle East, Web in Travel and Travel Weekly Asia. She is also the co-host of podcast The Southeast Asia Travel Show.
-
![]()
Steven Polmans
Steven has a long career in the cargo industry and after several operational and management positions in ramp and warehouse handling, he joined Brussels Airport in 2010 as Cargo Marketing Manager and then Director of Cargo and Logistics in 2012. He was responsible for developing and implementing the overall cargo strategy for the airport. Steven was the founding father and first chairman of Air Cargo Belgium, a new air cargo organisation at BRUcargo. He joined the board of TIACA in 2016, becoming Vice Chair in late 2017 and was appointed Chair in 2019, a position he still holds today.
-
![]()
David Griffiths
David has been leading non-aeronautical assignments for MIDAS Aviation since 2023. He is an experienced main board director including BAA, TRC, McArthurGlen, Systra Aviation and, has practical hands on experience as an airport retailer and as a consultant advising airports, airlines, and other organisations in the travel ecosystem. David entered the world of Airports as a key member of the senior team that transformed retail and car parking at BAA’s airports in the early 1990’s (at that time the World’s largest private airport operator), a model which has since been adopted worldwide at airports and across other transport sectors.
-
![]()
Mark Morris
Mark is an airport strategy, operations and planning specialist with 35 years professional experience covering airport strategy, aviation policy, aviation regulation, airport master planning and development, as well as project management, client liaison and project stakeholder communication. He was previously head of AECOM Asia’s Airport Planning Team leading airport master planning and design projects across Asia. Prior to that, Mark worked at BAA for over 17 years on the planning and execution of major airport capital investment programmes. Mark has an MSc in Transport Planning & Engineering from the University of Leeds and a BSc (Hons) In Geography.
-
![]()
Emeka Okorocha
Emeka is an experienced management consultant with expertise in engineering, aviation infrastructure development strategy and major programme delivery leadership. He has 20 years’ experience working across several airports in the UK, Ireland, Middle East and China. Emeka has provided solutions to deliver impactful change across airport infrastructure, developed commercial strategies for programme delivery and provided recommendations for operations improvement. His aviation journey started as a design engineer on the construction of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 in 2003, where he more recently returned to lead an On Time Performance (OTP) review that supported strategic decisions for improvement of operational delays across the airport.
Our Partnerships
-
AviaDev
Since 2018, we've supported AviaDev Europe and AviaDev Africa by providing in-depth analytical reports in advance of their events and being on-site to help chair panels and make presentations. In 2019 we created AviaDev Consult together, providing a platform for air service development consultancy.
-
IAR
We’ve worked with Prof. Zheng Lei since 2016 when he was brought into the University of Surrey to create a Masters degree programme in Air Transport Management. Prof Lei leads the Institute for Aviation Research, an independent think tank.
-
OAG
MIDAS Aviation has worked with OAG, a leading provider of travel data and insight for many years. All our partners are expert users of its analytical platform OAG Analyser which provides global schedule and traffic analysis. We continue to support OAG by providing content and insights which leverage the value of their data.
Want to get started?