Lucio Tan III, son of the late Lucio “Bong” Tan Jr. was named vice president of listed PAL Holdings Inc, according to a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Thursday (May 27). 

The 29-year-old Tan III is already working in the conglomerate as director of the various units of LT Group, including MacroAsia Corporation, Tanduay Distillers, Inc., PAL Holdings, Inc., Philippine Airlines, Inc., and Air Philippines Corporation, and LT Group, Inc. itself.

Tan III also holds the concurrent position of president and chief operating officer of Tanduay Distillers, Inc. 

The third-generation Tan graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Stanford University in 2015 and later earned a master’s in computer science two years later. 

Tan III lived in San Francisco, California and worked as an intern at Apple and Facebook. He also joined rideshare company Lyft as a software engineer before coming home to join the family business.

Cash-strapped PAL has been in crisis mode even before the onset of the pandemic. PAL posted net losses of over $600 million (P28.7 billion) from January to September 2020. Revenues, meanwhile, was only at P45 billion, down nearly 62 percent from the P118 billion it posted in the same period in 2019.

Multiple reports have said the company is seriously considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US to stave off creditors. PAL has not confirmed the move but said it would continue to study the best options for the airline and have not made a definite decision on the matter.