Dalton Philips: The man at the centre of the Dublin Airport passenger scandal
Chief executive of DAA Dalton Philips arriving at Leinster House to appear before the Oireachtas transport committee on Wednesday. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
Dalton Philips is the Harvard Business School alumnus whose name has been thrust into the limelight with the chaos at Dublin airport which has seen long queues, more than 1,000 passengers missing flights and staff shortages.
A native of Wicklow, Mr Philips took on the role of chief executive of Daa almost five years ago and recently set his sights on new horizons.
The outgoing chief executive of the State airports company will replace Patrick Coveney as chief executive of food firm Greencore.
This is a logical move for Mr Philips, who has more experience in the retail food industry than in the aviation business.
Prior to his role in Daa, he held senior management positions in Dairy Farm International, Walmart, and was chief executive of British grocer Morrisons.
In his most recent role, Mr Philips is coming under fire for how the Daa has handled the poor management of Dublin Airport in recent months, with tensions rising to an all time high when at least 1,000 travellers missed their flights last weekend.
Yet, this isn’t the first time Mr Philips’ leadership skills have been called into question.
While CEO of Morrisons in 2014, he faced scrutiny from Ken Morrison and members of his family who once controlled the company.
That year, Morrisons unveiled £1bn (€1.1bn) in price cuts after suffering a £176m (€206m) loss. Mr Morrison heavily criticised Mr Philips’ strategy at that time and urged him to “go back to basics”.
Time will tell if the mayhem of the last few months in Dublin Airport will taint his legacy with the Daa. In his tenure, he raised €1.15bn in additional liquidity for the Daa and led the development of a €2bn investment plan to improve the company’s services.
Despite working most of his adult life in the food retail sector, Mr Philips had his head turned to the sky from a young age.
His late father Tim Philips, the former manager-director of Ballyfree Farms, which sold its Ballyfree Browns egg business to Kerrygold, had a plane named ‘Ballyfree Bird’, which he raced in the England to Australia Air Race.
In a 2019 interview, Mr Philips said his “real desire was to become an airline pilot”, but his father talked him out of it.
Today, Mr Philips holds a private pilot’s licence and speaks fluent Portuguese and Spanish.
In addition to his father being a businessman in his own right, Mr Philips’ grandfather, Osborne David Philips, was an American entrepreneur who invented the plastic ziplock.
He not only inherited an interest in business from his father, but also his devout Christian faith.
In a 2014 interview with the God at Work YouTube channel, he said “the values that Christians have are values that businesses are looking for".
Dalton Philips did not personally respond for comment for this piece.
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