Alliance Aviation Services has appointed Steven Greenway as Chief Executive Officer, recruiting a low-cost carrier specialist to lead the Brisbane-based charter and wet-lease operator. The company announced the appointment to the Australian Securities Exchange on 18 August 2026.
Greenway takes up the role on 1 October 2026.
He brings more than 25 years of international aviation leadership across Australia, Asia, the Middle East and North America. He joins from flyadeal, the Saudi low-cost carrier owned by Saudia Group, where he served as Chief Executive Officer from 2024 and announced his departure in April 2026 for personal reasons, remaining in an advisory capacity through the end of the year.
During his tenure there passenger numbers grew by close to a third to pass 10 million a year for the first time, alongside network expansion and an order for ten Airbus A330-900neo aircraft to enter the long-haul market.
Earlier roles include Executive Vice President at WestJet and president of its ultra low-cost subsidiary Swoop in Canada, chief executive of a Hong Kong loyalty programme, and founding member and Chief Commercial Officer of Scoot, the low-cost arm of Singapore Airlines. He holds bachelor degrees in economics and political science.
His remuneration was disclosed with the appointment as fixed annual pay of 750,000 Australian dollars, a short-term incentive of up to 100 per cent of fixed remuneration, and a long-term incentive of three million options.
The transition is being managed over an extended handover. Stewart Tully, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer for more than eleven years, steps down and remains with the company until 29 October 2026 to support the changeover.
The appointment reads as a deliberate change of register rather than a like-for-like replacement. Alliance Aviation Services is not a scheduled airline. Its economics rest on fly-in fly-out contract work for resources clients and on wet-lease flying for Qantas and Virgin Australia, a business built on aircraft utilisation and contract renewal rather than on fare pricing or brand. Bringing in an executive whose record is in low-cost network building and commercial strategy suggests the board is looking beyond the contract base it already has.
The timing supports that reading. The change follows a revised wet-lease agreement with Qantas and organisational changes announced to the market on 5 August 2026, and the operator has been positioning itself as a specialist aviation provider with a fleet of more than 70 aircraft. A chief executive with commercial and network experience is the profile a company chooses when it intends to diversify revenue rather than defend it. The open question is whether skills honed in a consumer low-cost market transfer cleanly to a business whose customers are mining companies and legacy carriers negotiating multi-year capacity deals.
