{"id":121573,"date":"2026-07-08T17:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T17:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/121573\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T17:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T17:11:10","slug":"air-canada-names-new-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/121573\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Canada Names New CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Air Canada on Wednesday officially named its next president and CEO.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anko Van der Werff, currently CEO of Scandinavian Airlines, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aircanada.com\/media\/air-canada-announces-appointment-of-anko-van-der-werff-as-president-and-chief-executive-officer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"will take the helm at Canada\u2019s largest carrier by the end of January 2027\">will take the helm at Canada\u2019s largest carrier by the end of January 2027<\/a>, officials said. He will succeed outgoing CEO Michael Rousseau, who <a href=\"https:\/\/airlinegeeks.com\/2026\/03\/30\/air-canada-ceo-to-retire-after-condolence-video-controversy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"announced his retirement in March\">announced his retirement in March<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Air Canada, Van der Werff has held leadership positions at Scandinavian, Avianca Group, and Aerom\u00e9xico. He also previously worked at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Qatar Airways.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vagn S\u00f8rensen, chair of the board of directors of Air Canada, praised Van der Werff\u2019s \u201cexceptional breadth of international aviation experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe are confident he will drive further value-creating growth and transformation while maintaining our commitment to disciplined capital allocation,\u201d S\u00f8rensen said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"576\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/anko-van-der-werff_ac_16-9.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-100564\"  \/>Anko Van der Werff. (Photo: Air Canada)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rousseau\u2019s retirement will take effect Aug. 31. The outgoing CEO <a href=\"https:\/\/airlinegeeks.com\/2026\/03\/30\/air-canada-ceo-to-retire-after-condolence-video-controversy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"faced intense criticism earlier this year\">faced intense criticism earlier this year<\/a> after speaking almost entirely in English in a video statement on the collision of an Air Canada regional jet and a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport, which killed two pilots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The near exclusion of French \u2013 one of the country\u2019s two official languages, spoken by around 8 million Canadians \u2013 was slammed on social media, and by elected officials, including Prime Minister Mark Carney and lawmakers from Quebec.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rousseau had been knocked for his lack of French on other, earlier occasions, but the furor over the video statement was widely seen as the last straw and the likely end to his roughly five-year tenure as chief executive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Van der Werff, a native of the Netherlands, speaks Dutch and can communicate in French, Air Canada said Wednesday. To underscore the point, the carrier released two videos of Van der Werff introducing himself, one in English, the other in French.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAir Canada is a globally recognized airline leader,\u201d Van der Werff said in a statement. \u201cIt is an honor to be chosen to lead this iconic Canadian company as it advances its ambitions and strategy, builds on its award-winning employee culture and customer value proposition, and prepares for an even brighter future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Air Canada on Wednesday officially named its next president and CEO. Anko Van der Werff, currently CEO of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1206,5019,17,967,116],"class_list":["post-121573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-air-canada","tag-airlines","tag-canada","tag-featured","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}