EVA Air president elected 1st Taiwanese board member of IATA

Taipei, June 8 (CNA) Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明), president of Taiwan-based international carrier EVA Airways, has become the first Taiwanese member of the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) board of directors, EVA Air said Monday.

In a statement, EVA Air said Sun was elected one of the IATA's board members at the association's 82nd Annual General Meeting held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sunday.

According to IATA, its board of directors is composed of the CEOs of 31 carriers and IATA Director-General Willie Walsh.

EVA Air said the election of Sun as one of the IATA's board directors was a major milestone, indicating that the airline had earned the recognition of its global peers for its dedication to international civilian aviation and its status in the industry.

Walsh was cited in the statement as saying that IATA welcomed Sun to the board of directors and that he expected board members to take advantage of Sun's experience in passenger and cargo services to define IATA's policy directions and aviation development strategies.

Sun, who began his career in the Evergreen Group in 1986 and started with EVA Air in 1991, took the helm as EVA Air's president in 2018.

IATA's board of directors, its highest executive body, is in charge of overseeing the organization's strategic direction and approving major policies and governance structures, according to EVA Air.

IATA's board has four committees: the Governance & Performance Committee, the Industry Strategy & Policy Committee, the Finance, Risk & Audit Committee and the Membership Committee, the statement said.

According to EVA Air, IATA is a nongovernmental international organization comprised of airlines from around the world. Since it was established in 1945, the group has become one of the most influential organizations in the global aviation industry, EVA Air said.

Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, with an executive office in Geneva, Switzerland, IATA has more than 360 airline carrier members worldwide, making up more than 80 percent of global air traffic, EVA Air added.