David M Tait

Biography

David Tait was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of William Tait, a textile industry executive and Margaret Tait. He was educated at the Carolside Primary School in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire until age twelve when, with his family, he moved to Yorkshire, England. In Halifax he attended The Crossley and Porter Boys Grammar School until the age of eighteen - holding the position of Deputy Head Boy in his senior year.

After a brief spell working with his father in the carpet industry, Tait relocated to Spain and as he puts it, "stumbled upon the travel business" beginning a lifelong career in the airline/travel industry. Starting out as a Customer Service Trainer for the Thompson /Britannia Group in Mallorca, Spain, he graduated to Destination Manager in Spain, Moscow, Cyprus and Greece. In 1975 he upped stakes to Toronto, Ontario, Canada to work for WardAir, a Canadian Charter Airline, before being recruited by someone he'd first met in Spain, Sir Freddie Laker, to serve as the General Manager for Laker Airways in Toronto. In 1979 Tait moved with the company to Miami, Florida as Vice President, Marketing for the high-profile UK carrier’s “SkyTrain” low cost, scheduled services. He stayed with Laker Airways until the company was illegally driven out of business and forced to declare bankruptcy in early 1982. Tait maintains to this day that, "Laker Airways was killed because of its success."

Following Laker Airways untimely demise, Tait joined AM&M, a Miami-based aviation consulting firm and it was here that, at Freddie Laker's suggestion, he was asked by "some guy in the music business that I'd never heard of" to write the initial business plan for a start-up transatlantic airline. That "guy" turned out to be Richard Branson and what began life with the working title of 'British Atlantic Airways' eventually became Virgin Atlantic Airways. In January 1984, Tait moved to New York City to become the fledgling airline’s first US employee. Working out of a Greenwich Village townhouse and reporting directly to Chairman Richard Branson, Tait built and led all the airline's North American operations including sales, marketing, operations, customer service, finance, IT and HR as Executive Director and Executive Vice President North America from 1984–2002.

On May 1, 2001 at Buckingham Palace, David’s achievements were recognized when he was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of The British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II for “services to British aviation in the United States”.

Having helped build the upstart Virgin Atlantic to a $4 billion, critically acclaimed company, Tait left in 2002 to become Chief Executive Officer of Avocet Aircraft and later Spitfire Aviation Partners before returning to Canada to take the position of Senior Vice President, Customer Service, for Air Canada in Montreal. Tait left the company in 2007 to return to the US and form CONSULTAIT a consulting firm focused on brand-building, integrated marketing and customer service for a wide variety of international clients in aviation and other service-related industries. Tait is co-founder of Autism Double-Checked, an online training company to the travel industry on how to better serve guests with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). He is also a co-founder and President, North America for Straightline Aviation - a UK-based owner operator of the breakthrough new hybrid airships being developed by Lockheed Martin.

In addition to his other interests, since 2006 Tait has written a weekly column "TAIT on TRAVEL for the online publication Travel Industry Today, he has ghost-written several best-selling books and wrote 'Obama - The Historic Presidency/2920 days' which is due for publication by Sterling Press in April 2017.

Personal life

Tait has a son and a daughter by his first marriage with Ines Tait (nee Hackenberg) and presently lives in New Canaan, Connecticut, with his wife Taylor (nee Ingraham) and their three teenage sons.