European ATM organisation Eurocontrol has appointed Peggy Devestel as director of the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre and Tânia Cardoso Simões as director of European Green Sky.
Both appointments start this month. As director of the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre (MUAC) Devestel is responsible for Europe’s only cross-border, civil-military ANSP, managing the busy and complex upper airspace over Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and north-west Germany.
Devestel joins Eurocontrol from Belgian ANSP skeyes, where she was most recently chief operations officer, managing their operational, technical and meteorological services for their en-route centre, Brussels tower and ATC at five regional airports. She has over 32 years experience in the ATC sector, and started her career as an controller at Belgocontrol.
Raúl Medina, director general of Eurocontrol said, "Peggy is a highly experienced aviation leader. Her experience working closely with international and national organisations on operational and technical matters, most recently as skeyes’ Chief Operations Officer, makes Peggy a very strong choice as our new Director MUAC."
In addition, Tânia Cardoso Simões has been appointed director of European Green Sky. In her role she will be supporting European aviation in the key areas of aviation research and innovation, international cooperation and stakeholder support, aviation sustainability, and data-driven aviation intelligence.
Simões was a member of the board and then chair at ANAC, the Portuguese Civil Aviation Authority for seven years between 2016 to 2023. During this time she steered the organisation through a series of challenges including the pandemic period.
Most recently, Simões has been working as a top advisor on strategic matters for the Board of AdC, the Portuguese Competition Authority, where she worked for 13 years as a competition expert prior to joining ANAC.
Medina said, "Tânia is a strategic thinker who knows Eurocontrol and the European aviation environment extremely well, having represented ANAC at the EASA Management Board, in ECAC, at the Council of the European Union, and many other international fora including at ICAO.
“Her particular focus in recent years has been particularly on international cooperation and sustainability matters. I look forward to welcoming Tânia to my management team and working with her to find answers to the big challenges in her area.”