LONDON and BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 2, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- Virgin Express Holdings PLC (Nasdaq:VIRGY) (Euronext Brussels:VIRE) announced that Stephen T.M. Murphy (45) has been appointed as a new member of the board.
Stephen Murphy is Virgin Management's Executive Director of Transportation. He holds responsibility for all the transport interests of the Virgin Group of Companies including Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Blue and Virgin Rail. He is also a Director of V2 Music and a non-executive Director of IP Powerhouse Holdings Limited, an internet infrastructure provider.
Stephen was previously Group Finance Director of Virgin and has held a wide variety of senior finance positions with other major companies such as Mars, Unilever and Ford.
David Hoare, Executive Chairman of Virgin Express, commented: "Our largest shareholder, Sir Richard Branson, wants one of his key people to be part of the future developments at Virgin Express. It is particularly significant now that our airline finds itself in a promising position in the European low fare market".
The other board members are Neil Burrows (Managing Director), Luc Bertrand and Marc Poole.
Virgin Express connects Brussels with 14 major European destinations: Athens, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Faro, Geneva, Gothenburg, London-Heathrow, Lisbon, Madrid, Malaga, Milan-Linate, Nice, Rome and Stockholm. In 2001, Virgin Express carried 2.5 million passengers.