Appointment of Scandinavian Airlines chief signals a shift toward outside leadership at Canada's largest airline
Air Canada announced Wednesday, July 8, 2026, that Anko van der Werff, president and chief executive of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), will become the carrier's next president and CEO — a rare move for a Montreal-based company that has historically promoted from within. Van der Werff is expected to join Air Canada and its board of directors by the end of January 2027.
He succeeds Michael Rousseau, who will retire effective August 31, 2026, after 19 years with the airline, five of them as chief executive. During the transition period, Air Canada's executive committee will report directly to the board of directors, with Rousseau remaining available to support the handover, the Canadian Press reported.
Why Air Canada looked outside for its next leader
Air Canada said the appointment followed a comprehensive global search that evaluated candidates against a range of performance criteria, including the ability to communicate in French. Van der Werff, a Dutch native who has led SAS since 2021 and previously served as CEO of Colombian carrier Avianca, brings more than 25 years of international airline leadership across Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. He also held senior commercial roles at Qatar Airways and Aeroméxico, and management positions at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, according to the Canadian Press.
In a statement to media following the announcement, van der Werff said he was looking forward to leading the airline "as it advances its ambitions and strategy" and to relocating to Montreal to begin the role.
A pointed departure amid a language controversy
Rousseau's exit followed sustained criticism over his communication skills in French after he issued an English-only condolence statement following a fatal crash earlier this year. For a federally regulated employer headquartered in Quebec, the episode is a reminder to HR and communications leaders of how quickly a language misstep at the executive level can escalate into a governance and reputational issue, particularly for organizations subject to Canada's official languages obligations.
That backdrop makes Air Canada's explicit inclusion of French-language ability as a search criterion notable — and a signal that language and cultural fluency are being treated as core leadership competencies, not soft preferences, in senior executive hiring at Canadian corporations under the federal jurisdiction with national and international reach.
External CEO appointments up
The decision to hire outside the company also fits a broader pattern boards are grappling with. External CEO appointments among S&P 500 companies nearly doubled between 2024 and 2025, according to research from the US-based Conference Board, pushing internal promotion rates below 70% for the first time in eight years — evidence that more boards are prioritizing strategic renewal over internal continuity when performance or transformation pressure builds.
The Air Canada transition underscores several planning questions worth revisiting internally. Succession planning has climbed steadily up the list of board-level priorities, and the airline’s careful search is similar to Apple's own recent leadership transition earlier this year, where governance and communication planning around the handover drew as much attention as the choice of successor itself.
Air Canada's Chair of the Board Vagn Sorensen said in the media statement that the board is confident the new hire will help "drive further value-creating growth and transformation" as the airline works through a period of suspended financial guidance and depressed share performance relative to pre-pandemic levels.
