Aviation Leader Interview, Cebu Pacific CEO Mike Szucs

Mike started his airline career as a pilot with British Airways in 1990 flying Boeing 737, 757, 767 and Airbus A320 aircraft. He moved into management within British Airways in 1996 and by the year 2000, at the age of 34, was appointed as Chief Pilot of their Gatwick operations. In 2001, Mike moved into the commercial side of British Airways as General Manager World Sales. By late 2003 Mike had moved to EasyJet as Operations Director responsible for all maintenance, pilots, cabin crew, airport operations, safety and security. Latterly, in 2005 Mike became Chief Operating Officer. In 2006 Mike took the helm of his first airline, as the CEO of then start-up LCC VivaAerobus in Mexico. After three years, on very little cash investment, the company was thriving with healthy profit margins having weathered, amongst other things, fuel price shocks, excessive over-capacity, swine flu, and peso depreciation. Since 2009 Mike has taken on a breadth of CEO challenges: trying to rescue a massively distressed airline in Europe (Spanair), successfully starting another Latin American LCC (VivaColombia) and leading the efforts to establish a new LCC for Qatar Airways in Saudi Arabia (Al Maha). Having seen many other parts of the world, Mike was delighted to come to Asia in February 2016, taking the helm at Cebu Pacific Air.