Cathay Pacific has appointed James Ginns as its new regional general manager, Europe.

In this role, Ginns will be responsible for the airline’s strategic and business development in Europe.                                                                                     

Educated at Oxford University, he 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, Ginns 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.

Ginns, who has longstanding ties with Hong Kong, initially went there in 1987 to teach English to Vietnamese refugees on his gap year.

Ginns 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.”

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.