Con pilots Viva; Pyne heads for Russia

Rumors of CEO Andrew Pyne’s exit from Viva Macau ended yesterday with the formal announcement that his deputy, COO and CFO Con Korfiatis, has taken the helm. Pyne will move on to Russia at the end of July to work with a low cost carrier there, but will remain as a shareholder and advisor to the board of Viva.

“In a nutshell, I’m moving on from CEO to be a shareholder,” Pyne told Destination Macau. “I’ll still be involved in Viva, but will be taking on position of CEO for a new LCC in Russia, a domestic carrier. I’ll be starting from scratch, and I chose Russia because I’ve always been watching the market.”

Korfiatis, formerly with Jetstar Asia, Qantas and Singapore Airlines, says of his new role: “My and our vision for Viva Macau remains the same; we are the first airline to truly focus on Macau as a destination and we seek to grow aggressively and improve access to and from Macau, our home base, which is currently extremely underserved.”

Viva, which currently serves two, scheduled routes – Jakarta and the Maldives – has had a bit of a turbulent start, but Korfiatis says that changes in recent weeks seem to be clearing the skies.

“We have, in recent weeks, finally seen some regulatory support for change here, as seen with the exciting list of new routes that we have been approved to fly. But this is just the beginning, and so our challenge remains to break the monopoly tendencies of aviation in Macau and continue to make Macau accessible to the world. I think the broader Macau business community would be very supportive of us achieving this.”

Viva has been awarded flights to Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Tokyo and Sydney which are anticipated to get off the ground in July and August. The carrier currently has two Boeing 767 wide body aircraft, with plans to add eight more Boeing 767 aircraft to their portfolio by the end of 2008, Korfiatis says.