Newsmakers of the year

December 1st 2017

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The revolving door was busy at airline C-Suites across the Asia-Pacific in 2017 as several airline CEOs were sidelined, departed prematurely or just decided to take a break. Read More »

The most surprising departure came late in the year when the group managing director of Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB), Peter Bellew, resigned half way through his three-year contract. He returned to his former employee, Irish-headquartered LCC Ryanair, as chief operating officer.

MAB was not impressed and wasted no time in promoting the airline’s COO and career MAB pilot, Captain Izham Ismail, to the top job. “Bellew’s departure, if anything, has accelerated our plans to localize the leadership of the Malaysia Airlines group,” the airline said in its announcement of Ismail’s appointment in October.

At the start of 2017, global airline leader, Cathay Pacific Airways, signaled a year of change when it announced it would undergo management restructuring and leadership changes that would begin at the top. In May, the airline’s chief operating officer, Rupert Hogg, succeeded Ivan Chu as Cathay CEO. Hogg’s promotion was accompanied by the announcement of the first stage of the company’s three year transformation programme that resulted in an initial culling of 600 obsolescent positions at the airline. Cathay’s strategy step change is intended to reduce costs by HK$4 billion (US$512 million) and return it to profit as it battles fierce Mainland carrier competition, shifting patterns of passenger behaviour and customer expectations of ever lower fares.

Across the tarmac in Hong Kong, another expatriate, Andrew Cowen, took the fall at HK Express in October after being held responsible for a shortage of training staff at the airline that forced the cancellation of 14 of the carrier’s flights in the “Golden Week” peak season. Hong Kong Airline's former chief commercial officer, Li Dianchun, is now in charge and is working in tandem with HK Express' executive chairman, Zhong Guosong.

Elsewhere in the region, Patee Sarasin, the chief executive of LCC Nok Air since its launch in 2004, stepped aside in September, although he was permitted to remain at the carrier as deputy chairman. Nok Scoot CEO, Piya Yodmani, took charge of the domestic LCC and immediately began its turnaround.

At full service carrier, Thai Airways International, no permanent CEO is in sight following Charamporn Jotikasthira’s completion of his three-year contract with the carrier in February. Usanee Sangsingkeo has been THAI’s acting president for almost a year as the airline’s board continues its search for a permanent replacement for Charamporn, a former president of the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

Earlier in the year, in April, Arif Wibowo was dismissed as president of Garuda Indonesia and returned to subsidiary Citilink as losses mounted at the flag carrier. A former finance director of PT Bank Mandiri, Pahala Masry, is now in the hot seat where he has set about the task of stemming losses. Early decisions include eliminating loss-making destinations in the Garuda network and deferring and/or renegotiating aircraft orders.

Airbus’ “legendary” Leahy to retire in January Every airline boss in the world has a story about their relationship with Airbus super salesman, John Leahy. Redoubtable, indefatigable, extremely knowledgeable and combative when the public occasion required it, the 67-year-old American in Toulouse is credited with selling 90% of all Airbus airliners during his decades with the company – and providing plenty of entertainment for the aviation media industry while he was at it. Now finally ready to disrupt his life by retirement, he will be succeeded by Eric Schulz, 54, the current president of Civil Aerospace at Rolls-Royce, a position the aeronautical engineer has held since January 2016. Air Shows won’t be the same with John Leahy.

In the same month, there was a more orderly succession of leadership at All Nippon Airways (ANA) where ANA chief executive, Osamu Shinobe, was promoted to vice chairman of ANA HOLDINGS INC. and a 36-year veteran of the carrier, Yuji Hirako, succeeded him. Cosmopolitan Hirako was most recently an executive vice president and airline board member who led the carrier’s expansion to new U.S. destinations in the last three years.

In Australia, the Qantas Airways group announced its biggest management reshuffle since 2014, although it did not involve the group’s CEO, Alan Joyce. In August, Qantas International & Freight CEO, Gareth Evans, moved to low-cost subsidiary Jetstar as group CEO. Former Jetstar boss, Jayne Hrdlicka, was given responsibility for Qantas Loyalty and, and most interestingly, Digital Ventures. Alison Webster succeeded Evans as CEO Qantas International.

Further west, one of the biggest airline management shake ups in years was announced in January when the big spending Etihad Aviation Group revealed the architect of its alliance strategy, James Hogan, would formally depart the group on July 1. Hogan then became invisible in the group’s operations. The news was no surprise to the industry. It was widely known that the group was suffering big losses from its airline investments, particularly airberlin and Alitalia. Ray Gammell will continue as acting interim CEO of the Abu Dhabi group until Tony Douglas takes on the job permanently next month. Hogan and partners have set up a financial services company headquartered in Geneva.

In India, a market that is approaching China in significance, the leadership of the country’s two longest surviving airlines, Air India and Jet Airways, changed hands and a successor to Phee Teik Yeo, the launch CEO of joint venture full service carrier, Vistara, has been confirmed by India’s aviation regulator.

In November, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation managing director, Pradeep Singh Kharola, was confirmed as the new chairman and managing director of Air India, following the return of the plain speaking former Air India boss, Ashwani Lohani, to the railway business as head of India’ s rail company. Kharola will be at the centre of plans to dispose of ailing Air India to investors – and possibly rival airlines - a commercial strategy that gets some Indians hot under the collar.

Indian American, Vinay Dube, filled the vacant CEO chair at Jet Airways in June, 17 months after Cramer Ball left the carrier for Alitalia. Two acting CEOs, Gaurang Shetty and Amit Agarwal, kept the seat warm for Dube, who has returned to India after living abroad for three decades and working in senior positions at Delta Airlines, American Airlines and Sabre Inc.

At joint venture Tata-Singapore Airlines carrier Vistara, launch CEO Phee Teik Yeoh was succeeded by Scoot and Tigerair boss, Leslie Thng. Thng was chief commercial officer of Budget Aviation Holdings, the parent company of Scoot and Tigerair, from May 2016 to October this year and served as CEO at SilkAir for almost four years from September 2012.

Phee has returned to Singapore to take up a senior position with SIA after launching the full service carrier in January 2015 in an environment of heated opposition from threatened Indian controlled carriers. Vistara changed how Indians flew by offering standards of service and on time performance that local full service operators could not match.

On the move in 2018 In March 2018, Ken Choi, the very successful CEO of Jeju Air, will pass on the leadership of the carrier to his executive vice president, Lee Seok-Ju. Since Stanford University educated Choi took over Jeju Air, the budget carrier has grown into a US$800 million business and launched a successful IPO in 2015. At Hawaiian Holdings, chief executive, Mark Dunkerley, has announced he will retire from the airline group after a decade and a half at the carrier. Dunkerley joined Hawaiian in December 2002 as chief operating officer and was promoted to CEO in June 2005. He will be succeeded by current chief commercial officer, Peter Ingram.