Europe, Middle East & Africa appointment highlights - Mar-2020 / Apr-2020

The travel, tourism and aviation industries in the EMEA 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 EMEA market, while also looking forward to key appointments announced for the month.

Here are the key executive changes for Mar/Apr-2020;

• Brussels Airlines plans to propose Jan Smets and Christina Foerster as co-chairpersons of the board at the airline's general assembly in May-2020. The two replace Etienne Davignon and Thorsten Dirks
• SAS, at its AGM held on 12-Mar-2020, reelected Carsten Dilling as chairman
• IAG announced Willie Walsh will defer his retirement and continue to act as group CEO due to the company's current situation as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. IAG added Javier Sanchez will remain in place as Vueling CEO.
• SWISS appointed Markus Binkert as new CFO, effective immediately, as part of a reorganisation of its management board in response to the repercussions of the coronavirus.
• Comair (South Africa) announced the retrenchment of CEO for airline operations Glenn Orsmond and the early retirement of director for operations Martin Louw, effective immediately. These executive changes were made as a result of group restructuring.
• South African Airways (SAA) announced the early retirement of acting CEO Ms Zuks Ramasia, effective 14-Apr-2020. The board of directors will announce an interim successor during the business rescue process.
• SAS reported CFO Torbjørn Wist plans to leave the company in Sep-2020. SAS commenced finding a successor, and Mr Wist will continue in his current role during his notice period, or until a successor is in place.
• SA Express appointed acting GM human capital Thuli Mpse as acting CEO, succeeding Siza Mzimela, effective 01-Apr-2020.
• Lufthansa Group announced CFO Ulrik Svensson plans to resign due to health reasons. Mr Svensson will resign from his office and terminate his executive board activities effective 06-Apr-2020. The company stated the supervisory board will discuss and decide on a succession solution "as soon as possible".
• easyJet chief marketing officer Lis Blair stepped down from her role. The carrier stated it decided not to replace the role "like-for-like", instead restructuring the board to enable marketing, customer, digital and insight to report directly into CCO Robert Carey.
• SunExpress announced Max Kownatzki took over as CEO on 15-Apr-2020.
• Hahn Air announced plans to reshuffle its management team into new commercial and operations divisions as well as communications, IT and marketing. Alexander Proschka was appointed EVP commercial.
• Brussels Airlines announced Jan Smets will succeed Etienne Davignon as SN Airholding board co-chair.
• Montenegro Airlines CEO Zivko Banjevic resigned from the position. The carrier confirms Vlastimir Ristić as CEO.
• airBaltic deputy chairman Kaspars Briškens resigned from the position after three terms, effective 25-Apr-2020.
• LuxairGroup announced Luxair president and CEO Adrien Ney informed the carrier of his decision to retire, effective 01-Jun-2020. Mr Ney has served the company for 15 years.
• Jambojet appointed CFO Karanja Ndegwa as acting MD, effective 01-May-2020. Mr Ndegwa succeeds Allan Kilavuka, who was appointed Kenya Airways CEO.
• LuxairGroup proposed to nominate Gilles Feith as new CEO, effective 01-Jun-2020. The decision will be made at the company's upcoming AGM.
• IAG announced Luis Gallego will now succeed Willie Walsh as CEO at the company's 2020 AGM on 24-Sep-2020.