I… I… I’m speechless. Suffice it to say that a certain airline executive probably isn’t having a great Monday, as flagged by View from the Wing.
Continue reading: Etihad Executive Accused Of Fake, Shocking LinkedIn Profile
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Everybody involved in this sounds absolutely insufferable. They also have way too much time on their hands
Etihad has been marketing to bloggers well. This I will grant you. I flee them Ord to Auh and it was borderline mediocre. Food was abysmal. Wines were not loaded per the menu and they offered red or white. Ha! And the pajamas? Nowhere to be seen. The lounge in auh is mediocre - with a buffet - sneezing passengers and loud voices “ chefs”. Please. It is a below par airline - do t go for the hype created by the bloggers - or at least they should label paid promotion ( or awards that open up!). lol
I just find LinkedIn way over the top. I seldom ever go on there. I've had a past employer who tried to make all of us in leadership put one of a few certain banners there, mandate we post X number of times a week with great stuff our departments/stations were doing, etc. I refused to participate. As I told my boss (who was in complete agreement with me!), I only update LinkedIn when I'm applying for jobs.
So much on there is just blowing smoke. See and be seen "Oh what outstanding forward speak insert business jargon BS here you've brought to this role! Such an inspiring leader!"
Tim Dunn is a slightly better disguised fake account of Ed Bastian than Sabastien Ivander is of Arik De.
It's also, in many ways, become another social media toxic dumpster fire. Like, if we want to be depressed, we'll just look at Facebook.
This especially. An executive at that level should not have this much time on their hands whether doing it directly or using their resources to direct someone else to do it.
Also the dangerous type of insecurity that leads to publicly overconfident executives who privately are extremely unsure of themselves, which can lead to disastrous actions, not reacting productively to feedback (from the market or their teams), etc.
This does not surprise me, I worked with Arik at an airline and he was all about self praise. As soon as the bosses figured him out, he was gone. He was a case of Catch Me If You Can. We all knew it would catch up to him soon.
Sigh. Gossip threads one after another today. @Lucky how about those full Swiss reviews instead of all this fluff?
Ivander has an incredible resume. Starting at Czech Airlines during the Cold war, and still looking very crisp for someone who must be in his late 60s.
He deserves a raise and a promotion. Perhaps he can take over Boeing or maybe he will be Trump’s VP running mate. He’s a winner! He has my vote!
I know and have worked and socialised with the individual named in the fake LI profile. My impression: pure BS and it does not surprise me in the least that he would resort to stuff like this. Notice how often he changes jobs so after the initial gloss wears off you are left with the pure unadulterated fact that he used the old "bullshit baffles brains" principle to advance his career. 10 minutes with him and you start looking for your Wellies to prevent your feet getting covered with effluent.
If I wanted to read recycled View from the Clickbait content, I would read View from the Clickbait.
republicans and diaper donnie must be trying to collect royalties for this person's copycat approach to self-promotion.
If I were Machiavellian, I would say someone might be trying to give the impression this CRO is behind the fraudulent account to actually discredit him... and let social media do the rest.
Back to travel.
Arik’s main aims in Etihad are to self promote and to belittle others.
I have sat in multiple meetings where his management philosophy is to attempt to humiliate me or other Directors. He regularly invited random RevMan team members in and get them to join his criticism on e.g. images or videos. His OCD is routinely on display - some team members spend 12h a day on Ppts because he won’t look at a slide, even on internal decks if the title isn’t aligned
He WhatsApps nightly until 1am, and then again on Saturdays and Sundays - clearly zero life outside work. He invented stories about the CEO roles he’d been offered at major European carriers, and claimed to have turned them down because ‘they are too white’. He also puts late night meetings just to test people’s commitment, and invents so much bs work just to keep people in the office until late. Bullied as a child and now in a position of power, a bully.
Regretfully the CEO of Etihad isn’t much smarter; he worked for McKinsey, did you know? (He tells you twice per meeting) and likely won’t have the backbone to get rid of the bully and Chief Micromanagement Officer.
This is so TMZ. Is there any airline news today? Any actual airline news, that is?
Fraudulent profiles, online narcissism, bullying executive - is too minor to report, in your view? Any Exec behaving this unethically deserves to be in the headlines.
I have a hard time believing a senior exec at Etihad who has got several promotions spent time creating all this. I also find it equally intriguing that a senior exec at Indigo who worked at Etihad is creating this social media storm. Agree with many. Is there any real airline news?
Commercial Aviation relies on open and honest communication to ensure the safety and security of the operation.
We take all the risk of flying 000s of passengers higher than Mount Everest at 1000km/h across Planet Earth.
If you don't share factual technical information you shouldn't be working in aviation.
By that criterion alone, Person X is not fit to work in the industry
Hi Arik 🙂 you know exactly what you did.
You're still finding time to create new profiles?!
I've noticed his multiple fake accounts have been commenting on anything Etihad related on OMAAT recently... whatever it takes to validate his insecure self.
The prevailing culture is weird to me - it seems that only positive thing are considered acceptable.
He (the CRO at EY) is one of the most knowledgeable industry professionals I’ve ever met. However, he is absolutely insufferable. The first thing he will tell you when you meet him is that he holds passports from five different countries and that he has visited all the countries registered with an Olympic committee.
When he used to work with me, he would insist that you leave a positive comment about him on LinkedIn. He is always saying things like “a lot of people are asking me…” and “many people reach out to me…” I wonder who all these people are and where they are queuing up for his advice?
He is invasive on many levels and appears to be quite lonely. He loves gossiping, having lunch with people he can take advantage of, and gathering information to maneuver himself around. Humility is not in his DNA; he is always bragging about himself and his career. I wonder, if he is such an aviation guru, where are the books he has written?
He is quite narcissistic and will always offer unsolicited advice on your personal career. Good luck if you are a young, good-looking man in your mid-20s.
He claims that every respectable airline on Earth has offered him a job and says, “people discuss me in aviation forums.” The truth is he was fired from TP and AM, and I don’t really know how he is managing his personal life at EY.
How do I know he has impersonated someone on a fake LinkedIn profile? Whenever he wants to be sarcastic and prove a point arrogantly, he finishes his texts with either of these two emojis: “:) ;)”
Gotcha.
What a poor soul.
I think the user of the fake LI account (whoever it is) is the person who is insufferable - nothing wrong with Boulter calling out unacceptable behaviour and simply putting the information out there.
I am so glad people is finally letting him know the piece of garbage this guy is.
"Has got several promotions..." It is always about him and his career. How fast he has grown in X, Y or Z. You can easily identify him when he is behind any of these posts.
He barely sleeps, he has a lot of time to go over Instagram and see and criticize all those elements that he can't have because he is trapped in this horrible human being he is.
Someone should ask Arik De how his business cases for Air Asia X for KUL-MCT, KUL-IKA, KUL-MRU, BKK-MCT and BKK-IKA in 2016 turned out and why after just 4-5 months they were all shut down! He is nothing more than a big talker and a BS master of the highest order.
current employees and staff just get in touch with former ones... to check the stories of constant abuse and bullying...
in fact, we should all join a group in social media (reclused), or reach out somehow, because the stories are so many... a sort of #metoo. I'm really serious.. that kind of abuse, somehow you only see it when you see the stories shared, and other people who suffered it. I did... we all did. was absolutely horrible. He will forever be in my worst stories told of work bullying, of not sleeping, of anxiety..
he leaves a trace of destruction...
so glad to see this guy exposed...
yes,,, and is indeed very vindictive towards previous employers... even using professional means to it... we saw it. he did it. using his position and the company to "pay back time" to former employers/companies he disliked and hold a grudge on.
He is an incorrigible narcissist. He can't help it. All insecurity inside - everything eles is trying to compensate.
Having a narcissistic boss is really unforgettably bad.
I'm not sure why there are so many negative comments about Arik.
He is extraordinarily talented and the brightest person in the entire aviation industry.
He alone delivered the profits for EY and it has nothing to do with increased demand or jacking up prices.
Instead of the negative comments, he obviously deserves a massive bonus, pay rise, and other airlines should look to hire him as CEO.
The new routes at Etihad, Copenhagen, Dusseldorf, St Petersburg also had terrible LFs for the first months, and I suspect they still do. Truthfully the least talented executive I've ever met, with the lowest EQ.
Anyone interested in sharing their stories of being bullied, harassed, humiliated by the tyrant A De can reach out to Luca Zocche on LI.
Amusing on the topic of "young, good-looking man in your mid-20s". I also noticed favouritism towards those types... I wonder why!
Which is totally ok if that is his preference. Who are we to judge on this part? But odd to hit up on a professional setting young good-looking men in their mid-20's full of dreams and own expectations on climbing the corporate ladder, inviting them for weekend trips, telling them that with his advise they could be the next most brilliant CEO in the industry. Saying them that thank to him they are what they are. At the end he goes to his office and looks at them from the distance trying to have something from them he can't have. He will investigate with other sources about those good-looking young men and will talk bad about them in front of others. Trying to put them on a lower level. Because they are not him.
That's why he stayed and made people stay long hours at night presenting decks with his own format. That's what he is fed by.
Why is this important and why I am taking my time to talk about this subject? Because it is good to let it go, it's healthy to ventilate all that stress. I am glad that I learned how to stand up for me and never but never tolerate people like this in your life. It's literally a new me too in the corportate word.
Mr. Top Etihad Executive Accused of Faking LinkedIn Profile: A Reflection
If you are reading this - and I am sure you will - do yourself a favour and Google "Narcissistic Personality Disorder". It might provide you with some much-needed insight. I've noticed that a few colleagues on LinkedIn believe this case is worthy of a study. Perhaps after reading this note, you should review those posts as well.
Beyond this, I have one recommendation for you (take it or leave it): request a few days off and book a hotel room in an isolated place, like a mountain or a beach, preferably somewhere without internet connection. Use this time to reflect on who you are and the image you've been building throughout your career. From the perspective of many, you are undeniably famous, but unfortunately, not for the right reasons. Take a moment to consider all the actions you've taken and the high costs at which you've delivered results. Think about all the professionals who have been negatively impacted because of you, the countless nights and conversations dominated by discussions about you. These talks take place at bedtime, over dinner, through texts, in the kitchen, in the living room, while waiting for meetings, or connecting to Teams calls. How many social and personal events have you interrupted because of your actions? At the end of the day, I believe it's a poor investment.
I have a few questions: How old are you? Why did you think it was appropriate to create a false account at your level in life? To praise yourself? Why do you crave this self-validation that centres on you? What do you seek from this? A Nobel prize? An Oscar? Maybe an airline? I genuinely want to understand.
Fortunately, there are limits. Thankfully, you are not running a hospital, negotiating peace talks, or leading a larger organization with a greater social impact. In five years or whenever it may be, you will leave Etihad, and life will go on. Planes will take off with or without you. People will remember you, but as an example of what not to do. I sincerely hope your HR team at Etihad recognises the help you need and sees a success story in you (once you change, of course).
In the meantime, seek solace in the one thing that might still be loyal to you: your dog. (Perhaps your close family, but I am not certain about that either.)
With my best regards,
A former colleague from the company you work for, who witnessed my boss, my mentor, suffer the consequences because of you.
And here is the man who spoke about integrity at his first town hall, a moment I distinctly remember from his introduction to the entire team. He boasted about being a superstar in the US presidential election campaign and mentioned his time at the World Bank, claiming he left because he couldn't deal with the numerous subpar individuals there. Now I realize that everything he said was a complete lie.
... make it simple,
ETIHAD was never an airline that you should trust!
No matter what level or operation at the airline, even all the former CEO's, or executives, they all were a lot less, then they pretended to be.
Starting with a former TriStar/A330 captain from LTU, to training pilots and lastly the ones who tried to buy out other airlines, but failed so badly, simply because they had NO knowledge of how that business is done.
Most were put in place, simply by recommendation or how they presented themselves, no checks done and it always had to be done FAST at Etihad.
We all know, were this went.
So to say it in an easy but maybe sketchy way, NEVER trust Etihad in the things they say.
Arik Kumar De has no leadership and no management skills. Staff turnover ratio was the highest after he joined, staff were bullied. He promoted a fear and blame culture in Revenue Management. It is a shame that Etihad Airlines is a joke now because of such a person. Etihad lost lots of talents and great staff because Mr. Kumar De wanted to bring his people, giving them senior positions although they were not qualified. He bypassed HR promotion policies by promoting Himself and His staff when they still were on probation!!!! Maybe it is time for the board of directors to further investigate the mockery of this guys work and take necessary actions on him and on all whom supported him including HR..shame !!
Day 8 since this news broke and still 0 communication or clarification from the big man himself nor HR. To be honest, this behaviour/outcome was already anticipated because Etihad has changed into a place where this person easily manipulates hiring and dismissals because he has got good backing in the company. There aren’t anyone that questions or asks about this matter because everyone is afraid to be fired or bullied to leave. There has been many instances where good people were made to leave because they spoke up against this man. Employees are constantly being told to be grateful to even have a job. This is the kind of fear they instil. An advice if you’re considering to join this company, RUN.
This person is up to their old tricks, manipulating those who are most easily influenced. Promoting 'yes men' with no experience into senior roles. Check out the carefully curated comments on this person's posts from their own team! They are hand-picked to be half smart. Smart enough to do the job but not smart enough to challenge this person or see what is actually happening. And yet so self absorbed and wrapped up in their own careers that they don't understand the huge mistake they are making by connecting themselves to this person...
I’m in a difficult position now, as my reputation is ruined and I’m the laughing stock of the entire industry, so I can’t leave Etihad as I’ve got no career path anymore.
I plan to keep suppressing you little people to feed my rampant ego.
Truthfully, I feel threatened by anyone who is more capable than me, or has more passports, so I’m going to keep getting rid of those people quickly. I’ve got all my VP and SVP minions ready to analyse the next (non) anonymous HR surveys and work out who dared answer honestly, so I can fire them asap 🙂
Ivander