Willie Walsh joined Aer Lingus as a trainee pilot in 1979 and took over as its chief executive 22 years later in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
The terrorist attacks plunged the aviation world into its biggest ever financial crisis from which it has not fully emerged. In Dublin Mr Walsh was faced with an overstaffed airline not only losing £2m a day but under constant attack from Ryanair, a low cost carrier voraciously snapping up its market.
When he left in January this year, Aer Lingus was a different animal: staff and costs had been ruthlessly cut but, as important, Mr Walsh switched its short haul operation to the low cost model and introduced many more routes and online booking. It is now reporting record sales.
But Aer Lingus is a small airline. His new charge British Airways is ten times its size in terms of fleet and employees – and its problems are manifold too.
Many analysts agree that Rod Eddington, the outgoing ceo, has done an excellent job in appalling circumstances in his five years at the helm. Costs and staff have been cut and the premium offering on the lucrative transatlantic notably upgraded.
To assist his successor further, Mr Eddington has also laid out the business plan and direction for the next two years. And this is where Mr Walsh's problems might lie.
More job cuts are on the agenda as well as radical changes in working practices to ease BA's move into the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow in 2008.
But BA's unions are wary of these moves and as both Mr Eddington and his predecessor, Bob Ayling found out, not slow to take action.
Mr Walsh is also likely to want to look more closely at BA's short haul operation. It's cheaper than it was but has a poor reputation and is still losing money. It may be that operations get a thorough shake up - at the least Mr Walsh is likely to consider scrapping business class as he did at Aer Lingus - while services losing too much money might just be axed.
Two other major changes also loom on the horizon. Sooner or later, the persistent rumour of consolidation of the European aviation industry will move more substantially from talk to action which could mean a merger between BA and Iberia. A precedent has already been set with Air France/KLM deal. And the EC wants to see more of this
Secondly the Open Skies talks between the EU and the US, due to resume later this month, could bring both set backs and opportunities. At possible risk is BA's dominant presence at Heathrow which the Americans would love to dilute.
The opportunity is that major European airlines might be allowed to invest in or set up airlines in the States.
But it is on the home front that Mr Walsh's problems are likely to be the largest - notably the demand for more staff cuts and changes in working practices. It is here that Mr Walsh seems to be at his strongest.
The former altar boy from Dublin is a formidable negotiator. The words most often associated with his style are single minded and implacable. People who dealt with him in Ireland made two points about him to BTE: that he is very straight and does not change his mind.
One industry insider told us: “In terms of general feedback both from within and outside the airline, he was known as a very "dogged" negotiator, extremely focused and single-minded.
“Most importantly he was consistently "straight" so that you always knew exactly where he stood, what he was trying to achieve and how he intended achieving it.
“He very much worked on the principal of "this is what we are doing, you're either with us or against us on the issue - but we'll be going ahead irrespective".
“I suppose the best example of this would be when he closed Aer Lingus two years ago following disagreements from the unions, and after it was closed for a couple of days the unions quickly realised just how serious he was about implementing changes.”
BA could well be in for a period of great turbulence.