Wheels Up chief sales officer Mark Briffa stepping down

Most recently, Briffa led global sales across Wheels Up's membership and charter businesses.

Mark Briffa is stepping down from his role as chief sales officer (CSO) of Wheels Up, in the interim he will be replaced by David Godsman.

Briffa, an industry veteran of more than 30 years, will remain with the company through to the end of August. He spent just over four years with Wheels Up and 26 with Air Partner, which was acquired by Wheels Up in 2022, before that. Most recently, he led global sales across the membership and charter businesses.

David (aka Dave) Godsman, who serves as chief digital officer, will lead global sales on an interim basis while the search for the next CSO is underway. Godsman has played a central role in designing and implementing the Wheels Up’s new sales and service model and will assume the sales business’ existing reporting structure, according to a press release.

The news follows last week’s internal announcement that Mike Bowman has joined Wheels Up as executive vice president, Global Corporate Sales, following an 18-year career at Delta Air Lines, where he most recently led Delta’s corporate sales partnership with Wheels Up for three years. He will report to Godsman and lead corporate sales strategy globally across enterprise customers, industry verticals and small-to-medium enterprises (SME).

Last week, Wheels Up reported a second-quarter net loss of $107m, wider than the $82m loss in the same period last year, as transformation costs from its fleet overhaul weighed on results.

On the flip side, the company’s premium Signature membership programme doubled year-to-date and operational metrics hit record highs.

“Wheels Up made meaningful progress this quarter, completing our fleet modernisation, reaching record levels of operational reliability, strengthening our Delta partnership and building momentum with our Signature Membership,” said George Mattson, Wheels Up CEO.