New Greater Bay Airlines Bulks Up Its Board With Industry Bigwigs

What’s new: Greater Bay Airlines, a new Hong Kong-based airline still in formation, has added six high-profile officials and airline veterans to the company’s board, including Wang Wei, founder and chairman of China’s most valuable logistics firm, SF Holding Co Ltd.

Among the six members who joined the board recently are Qiu Yingye, the former executive president of Cathay Dragon who became the new airline’s executive president last week, Hong Kong lawmaker Arthur Li Kwok-cheung, Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen, who is the current president of the legislative council of Hong Kong, and Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong, the former head of the security bureau.

It is not the first time that East Pacific Group Ltd. — the owner of Greater Bay Airlines — has stepped into the airline industry. It set up two private airliners, Shenzhen-headquartered Donghai Airlines in 2002 and Donghai Jet in 2010.

What are the details: Originally from South China’s Guangdong province, the founder of the airline owner East Pacific, Bill Wong Cho-bau, expects the airline to commence operations in the first or second quarter of 2021 at the earliest, with five planes. Its fleet will increase to 30 aircraft by 2025, he said, which will fly between cities in Southeast Asia and smaller cities on the Chinese mainland.

Donghai Airlines now owns 23 Boeing 737-800 aircraft that fly 93 routes connecting 54 cities worldwide. It submitted an application to Hong Kong’s airlines regulators in July for an operating license, and is awaiting approval.

Contact reporter Anniek Bao (yunxinbao@caixin.com) and editor Heather Mowbray (heathermowbray@caixin.com)

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