Pacific Airlines gets new CEO

1 min readUpdated Aug 18, 2020Aug 19, 202011:03 PM

The board of Vietnam Airlines has named a new CEO for subsidiary Pacific Airlines, formerly Jetstar Pacific.

Dinh Van Tuan, 50, has taken from Nguyen Thuong Hoang Hai, who quit for personal reasons. Tuan was earlier the director of Vietnam Airlines’ operations center, and has served in various capacities at the carrier since 1996.

Jetstar Pacific became Pacific Airlines on August 1 and got a new logo as Vietnam Airlines, which owns a 68.86 percent stake in it, seeks to buy another 30 percent stake from Australia’s Qantas.

The first joint-stock airline in Vietnam was set up in 1991. In its 29 years, it has only reported profits for four years. It has major expansion plans, with the current fleet of 18 aircraft set to be increased to 50 by 2025.

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What this means

The appointment of Dinh Van Tuan, a long-serving Vietnam Airlines veteran, signals a clear intent from the majority owner to impose operational discipline and stem losses at Pacific Airlines. Given the subsidiary’s dismal financial track record and Vietnam Airlines’ ambition to acquire full ownership, this move is a necessary step towards a more unified and efficient structure. It pressures rivals by potentially creating a more formidable, albeit still challenged, budget competitor, especially if the ambitious fleet expansion materialises. The primary risk lies in Tuan's ability to overhaul a deeply entrenched loss-making operation without the autonomy that a new, external leader might command. Watch for any public statements regarding the Qantas stake acquisition timeframe.

Wei Zhang

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