A profile of three of the key players central to the proposed management buy-out of Aer Lingus

Mr Willie Walsh

Willie Walsh took over one of the toughest jobs in world aviation when he was appointed chief executive of Aer Lingus in October 2001.

Mr Walsh began his career as a cadet pilot with Aer Lingus in 1979 and has been with the company ever since.

He rose through the ranks to flight operations management in the mid-1990s, while the late Mr Bernie Cahill was guiding the State airline through an earlier crisis that struck at the beginning of that decade.

Between 1998 and 2000, he was chief executive and a director of Futura, a Spanish-based charter operator that Aer Lingus owned, but has since sold.

In 2000, at the age of 38, he was appointed chief operations officer of Aer Lingus, and took over the top job the following year. Acquaintances are not surprised at the audacity of his bid to lead a management buyout (MBO) of the airline.

Throughout his career, he has always stood out as ambitious, and associates acknowledge he has the brains and commitment to match that drive.

Mr Seamus Kearney

Aer Lingus chief operations officer, Mr Seamus Kearney, originally qualified as a civil engineer. He joined the State airline in 1987, not long after graduating from University College Dublin, from where he also holds a Masters in business administration.

Mr Kearney has worked in various parts of the organisation. He was head of sales and marketing for Europe, chief executive officer of Aer Lingus commuter (when it existed as a distinct division) and general manager of group operations.

One source says his career reads as if he had spent 15 years preparing for his appointment as head of operations in January 2002.

Like his two colleagues in the management buy-out bid, sources say Mr Kearney is intelligent and ambitious.

Like Mr Willie Walsh, associates say that he is a straight talker who won't shrink from telling bad news to workers and colleagues if he has to.

However, his toughness is said to be balanced by a fair degree of affability.

Mr Brian Dunne

Mr Brian Dunne, at 37, is the youngest of the trio that hopes to lead a management buyout of the State airline. He is also the only one of the three that has not spent all his career to date working for Aer Lingus.

Mr Dunne joined Aer Lingus as acting chief financial officer in October 2001, the same month that his colleague, Mr Willie Walsh, took over as chief executive.

Mr Dunne is a chartered accountant and joined the airline from Arthur Andersen, now Accenture, where he was a partner. He worked in the audit division there for a period and it is understood that this would have been his first encounter with Aer Lingus, which was a client up to the mid-1990s.

He then worked for a period on secondment to the what was then the Department of Public Enterprise, which had responsibility for the airline.

On joining Aer Lingus, he played a key role in drawing up and implementing the plan that saved the carrier from insolvency. Former colleagues describe Mr Dunne as "very bright and ambitious".