The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has appointed Martin Craigs as its new chief executive officer from October 31.

Martin is the currently elected President of Aerospace Forum Asia (AFA) and Managing Partner at Hillcrest International Advisory.

For the last 25 years, Martin, 55, a UK and Irish passport holder, has been mostly based in Hong Kong. An aviation industry specialist, Martin has held important and senior positions at companies such as Short Brothers and Saab Scania Group, rising to become Executive Vice President of BAE Systems.

He has undertaken projects and worked in Europe, the USA, Latin America, and the Middle East over the last 30 years.

Bill Calderwood, PATA Interim CEO, informed PATA commented: “I personally believe that Martin will bring visionary leadership, outstanding public speaking skills, and strong inter-cultural diplomacy and advocacy skills to the PATA helm. He is the right person to lead PATA, as the association commits to an exciting future of building business and advocacy on behalf of our members.”

Over the last few years, Martin has been asked to lobby for and advise diverse organizations such as Air Asia, the Hong Kong SAR Government, Reed Elsiver, The Economist, IATA, and Pacific Basin Economic Council. He has been a guest of IATA at the last 10 Annual General Meetings of the World Transport Summits. He has also attended APEC summits in Asia and Latin America.

PATA first started searching for a new CEO nearly a year ago in October 2010, when former CEO Greg Duffell decided to leave the organization after only 18 months in the position of CEO.

PATA, which was founded in 1951, has been undergoing additional restructuring prior to Martin’s appointment in order to “start off with a clean slate”.

Three of its regional directors in Europe and North America will not have their contracts renewed as of October, two staff in the Strategic Intelligence Centre have been “restructured” as of last month and five staff have moved to the newly established marketing and membership services unit.