Near the end of Arjun Basu’s six-year-run as EnRoute’s EIC, he took on the role of editorial director for Spafax Canada Inc. custom publications. “I was wearing both hats for two years and at the beginning it was manageable,” he says. “But because we grew so much over the past year, it just became something that needed to happen, just for my sanity I think.”

Basu recently stepped down from his EnRoute post to focus on his editorial director duties. In his place is Ilana Weitzman, who progressed from section editor to senior editor to EIC of Air Canada’s in-flight magazine. The January 2008 issue is Weitzman’s first.

Weitzman says she plans to stick with EnRoute’s successful model. “We’ve always had a really great roster of writers,” she says. “The intelligence and the wit and the perspective of EnRoute won’t change.”

She is also focused on engaging her readers and offering content they can’t find elsewhere. “EnRoute never measures itself by other in-flight magazines ’cause we don’t fool ourselves to thinking you’re on the plane and it’s the only thing you can read,” she says. “We really measure ourselves by all other media because you could on that plane choose to read anything you wanted, you can read Vanity Fair, you can read EnRoute.”

Basu will remain a part of EnRoute in a “consultive way” and his own column will premiere in the book’s April edition. The title is to be determined, but the content will be focused on “air world,” which Weitzman explains is the space created by the geography of airports and travel.