ASPAC appointment highlights of the month – Feb-2020

11 March, 2020

The travel, tourism and aviation industries in the ASPAC region 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. The Blue Swan Daily will keep you informed of these movements each month, with a full wrap of the key changes in the ASPAC market, while also looking forward to key appointments announced for the month.

Here are the key executive changes for Feb-2020;

  • Nepal's Government appointed Kedar Bahadur Adhikari as Nepal Airlines executive chairman;
  • Skymark Airlines appointed Hayao Hora as president, replacing Masahiko Ichie, who retired at the board meeting on 13-Feb-2020;
  • GoAir appointed Vinay Dube as CEO. Mr Dube previously served as Jet Airways CEO and has served GoAir is an advisory role since Oct-2019;
  • Singapore Airlines announced the following appointments, effective 01-Apr-2020:
    • Mak Swee Wah as executive VP operations. Mr Wah is currently executive VP commercial;
    • Lee Lik Hsin as executive VP commercial. Mr Hsin is currently CEO of Scoot;
    • Tan Kai Ping as executive VP finance and strategy. Mr Ping is currently senior VP marketing and planning.
  • Singapore Airlines (SIA) announced plans to reappoint Campbell Wilson as CEO of Scoot, effective 01-Apr-2020. Mr Wilson will replace Lee Lik Hsin, who will assume the role of EVP commercial at SIA;
  • PAL Holdings appointed Lucio C Tan as president, effective 18-Feb-2020. Mr Tan is also a chairman of the company;
  • Nok Air announced the following directors will retire from its board of directors by rotation on 27-Feb-2020:
    • Prasert Bunsumpun as independent director and chairman of the board;
    • Nopporn Chandawanich as director and member of the executive committee;
    • Apichart Chirabandhu as independent director, chairman of the nomination and
    • remuneration committee and member of the audit committee;
    • Chiraporn Chemnasiri as independent director, chairman of the audit committee and member of the nomination and remuneration committee.
  • HNA Group appointed Gu Gang as executive chairman and Ren Qinghua as co CEO along with Adam Tan on 29-Feb-2020. Chen Feng remains as chairman;
  • Pakistan's Cabinet approved the appointment of Aslam R Khan as Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) chairman;
  • Japan Airlines Group announced the following executive changes, effective 01-Apr-2020:
    New appointments:
    • Yuichi Kitada: Director - managing executive officer;
    • Munekazu Tachibana: SVP - flight operations;
  • Promotions:
    • Shinichiro Shimizu: Executive VP;
    • Yuichi Kitada: SVP of engineering and maintenance and president of JAL Engineering.