Tan Wangeng, former general manager of China's biggest air carrier China Southern Airlines, has left the state-owned company to join the country's largest plane builder, Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China.

It is unclear who will take over Tan's role at China Southern, but the move could see a string of personnel changes in the civil aviation sector.

With him at the helm, China Southern doubled the size of its fleet to from 2009 to 2017, when it had 754 aircraft. Net profit also grew more than 10-fold to CNY6.8 billion (USD985 million) last year from CNY554 million (USD80 million) eight years earlier.

COMAC is already delivering its ARJ21 regional airliner and has begun test flights for its 190-seater C919 passenger jet. The firm is also designing a wide-body craft, the CR929, in partnership with Russia.

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