Cathay Pacific announces James Ginns as new Regional General Manager Europe

Cathay Pacific has appointed James Ginns as its new Regional General Manager Europe. In this role, James will be responsible for the airline’s strategic and business development in Europe.

 

Educated at Oxford University, James joined Swire & Sons in 1991, and has held a number of key positions at Cathay Pacific over the last 26 years – most recently as Director Service Delivery.

 

During his time with Cathay Pacific, James has acquired a wealth of experience in airline operations, country management, marketing and service delivery, in key roles such as General Manager Inflight Services, General Manager Marketing, Loyalty Programmes & CRM and General Manager Japan.

 

All of these experiences will be invaluable in his new role as Regional General Manager Europe for Cathay Pacific.

 

James, who has longstanding ties with Hong Kong, initially went there in 1987 to teach English to Vietnamese refugees on his gap year. Following a sabbatical in 1995 when he worked with a non-governmental organisation to manage a Vietnamese refugee centre, James returned to Cathay Pacific as Relocation Manager, overseeing the move of Cathay Pacific’s operations from Kai Tak Airport to the new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok in 1998.

 

Talking about his new role, James commented: “Cathay Pacific’s growth in Europe has been hugely exciting to watch over the last few years, and we now fly direct between Hong Kong and 13 airports in the region. We have expanded our existing route portfolio to include Barcelona, Tel Aviv, Madrid, Düsseldorf, Zurich, as well as Manchester and London Gatwick in the UK. With more state of the art Airbus A350s set to join our fleet, we look forward to more exciting opportunities for Cathay Pacific to expand further in the region.”

 

He continued: “Given how much Cathay Pacific’s presence has grown in Europe, the priorities are now to generate even more revenue from this region, to deliver Cathay Pacific’s brand promise of a Life Well Travelled by further enhancing the airline’s signature service across all customer touchpoints, and to do both more efficiently.”

 

Cathay Pacific is committed to continuously investing in its customer proposition. James said: “Our critically-acclaimed flagship lounge at London Heathrow airport continues to be very well received by our customers. Going forward, we aim to provide more flexibility to our customers travelling between Europe and Asia; and our team is working hard to introduce more technology in our European airport operations to further enable a Life Well Travelled.”

 

“We look forward to inspiring more leisure and business travellers from the UK and Europe to journey with us to Hong Kong and beyond.”

 

Moving back to the UK with his wife and four sons, James added: “The chance to return to the UK was perfect timing for us as a family; so I jumped at the opportunity given that my last spell with Cathay Pacific Europe was 24 years ago in Paris.”  

 

Cathay Pacific operates five flights daily from London Heathrow to Hong Kong. It also offers a daily flight from London Gatwick, and five flights weekly from Manchester. From December 2017, Manchester will move to a daily flight. Both Gatwick and Manchester routes are operated by the Airbus A350-900.

 

Cathay Pacific offers direct flights between Hong Kong and the following European airports: Amsterdam (AMS), Barcelona (BCN), Düsseldorf (DUS), Frankfurt (FRA), London Gatwick (LGW), London Heathrow (LHR), Madrid (MAD), Manchester (MAN), Milan (MXP), Paris (CDG), Rome (FCO), Tel Aviv (TLV), and Zurich (ZRH).