Going Places – industry appointment highlights for Sep-2022

The travel, tourism and aviation industries in the across the globe witness policy and upper level changes on a daily basis. It is important to not only keep tabs of these organisations direction, but to also monitor changes in executive branches to see the wider picture of the travel market. CTC - Corporate Travel Community aims to keep you informed of these movements each month, with a full wrap of the key changes across regional markets, while also featuring key appointments announced for the month.

Here are the key executive changes for Sep-2022:

Asia Pacific

• SpiceJet announced CFO Sanjeev Taneja resigned his position.
• Air China parent China National Aviation Holding Corporation appointed Ma Chongxian as chairman and party secretary.
• InterGlobe Aviation Limited announced Pieter Elbers commenced in the role of IndiGo CEO, effective 06-Sep-2022, replacing Ronojoy Dutta.
• Philippines AirAsia appointed Jared Valarao as CFO.
• SpiceJet appointed Ashish Kumar as CFO.
• China Southern Airlines appointed Xie Bing as chief economist.
• Qantas Group appointed Stephanie Tully as Jetstar CEO. As a result of this appointment, Markus Svensson will be promoted to chief customer officer and become a member of the group executive committee reporting to the group CEO. Current Jetstar CEO Gareth Evans will leave the role by the end of 2022.
• Air China promoted vice chairman and president Ma Chongxian to chairman, succeeding Song Zhiyong
• Uni Air announced the resignation of chairman Chang Kuo-wei.
• Uni Air appointed Solomon Lin as chairman.

Europe, Middle East & Africa

• Air France-KLM announced the appointments of Pieter Bootsma as EVP and chief strategy officer and Angus Clarke as EVP and chief commercial officer.
• HOP! appointed Olivier Mazzucchelli as CEO.
• Rossiya - Russian Airlines appointed Yan Burg as CEO.
• Eurowings announced Edelweiss Air CEO Bernd Bauer will take over the position of Eurowings Discover CEO in addition to his existing role.
• Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) appointed Kyryl Zvonarov as president.

Americas

• Chorus Aviation announced president and CEO Joseph Randell plans to retire in 1Q2023. Chorus Aviation COO and Chorus Aviation Services president Colin Copp will become president and CEO upon Mr Randell's retirement.
• American Airlines Cargo appointed Greg Schwendinger as president.
• Southwest Airlines announced the following leadership changes:
  • President and COO Mike Van de Ven will step down as COO effective 30-Sep-2022 and as president from 31-Dec-2022. Mr Van de Ven has served as COO for over 16 years and will become an executive advisor for the airline in 2023;
  • EVP and CCO Andrew Watterson promoted to COO;
  • SVP and chief marketing officer Ryan Green promoted to EVP and CCO;
  • EVP people and communications and chief communications officer Lina Rutherford assumed the role of chief administration and communications officer;
  • CEO Bob Jordan will assume the additional role of president, effective 01-Jan-2023.