Air Canada on Wednesday officially named its next president and CEO.
Anko Van der Werff, currently CEO of Scandinavian Airlines, will take the helm at Canada’s largest carrier by the end of January 2027, officials said. He will succeed outgoing CEO Michael Rousseau, who announced his retirement in March.
According to Air Canada, Van der Werff has held leadership positions at Scandinavian, Avianca Group, and Aeroméxico. He also previously worked at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Qatar Airways.
Vagn Sørensen, chair of the board of directors of Air Canada, praised Van der Werff’s “exceptional breadth of international aviation experience.”
“We are confident he will drive further value-creating growth and transformation while maintaining our commitment to disciplined capital allocation,” Sørensen said in a news release.
Rousseau’s retirement will take effect Aug. 31. The outgoing CEO faced intense criticism earlier this year 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.
The near exclusion of French – one of the country’s two official languages, spoken by around 8 million Canadians – was slammed on social media, and by elected officials, including Prime Minister Mark Carney and lawmakers from Quebec.
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.
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.
“Air Canada is a globally recognized airline leader,” Van der Werff said in a statement. “It 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.”
