Lam, who joined Hong Kong’s national airline as a management trainee in 1996, will take over as chief executive from Augustus Tang in the new year.

As part of a wider management shake-up, director of customer travel Lavinia Lau will take over from Lam from 1 January and will join the airline’s board as executive director.

Elsewhere, chief operations and service delivery officer Greg Hughes will retire from his role at the end of March 2023 and will be replaced by Alex McGowan.

Lam’s appointment as chief executive designate comes as Cathay seeks to ramp up its operations, with plans to fly more than 30,000 additional Heathrow seats this autumn.

Load factor on Cathay’s London flights increased to 96% in September. Daily frequencies will top out at four on certain days in December.

Cathay Pacific Group chair Patrick Healy said he and the rest of the board had been impressed by Lam’s long-term vision for the airline.

“Ronald will lead the airline through its post-Covid recovery and the introduction of the three-runway system at Hong Kong International airport as the airline looks to increase its passenger flight capacity and strengthen connectivity at the Hong Kong international aviation hub," said Healy.

Healy also paid tribute to Tang for the "critical role" he played in the airline’s 2020 restructure and its handling of the pandemic.

Other senior leadership appointments include a promotion for general manager planning Erica Peng, who will succeed Lau from 1 January 2023, while Mandy Ng, chief executive of Cathay’s low-cost subsidiary HK Express, will return to Cathay to succeed McGowan from 1 April 2023.

Jeanette Mao, general manager inflight services at Cathay, will succeed Ng from 1 April 2023.