Two more senior executives at China Southern Airlines have been put under investigation in an continuing probe by Beijing's top graft-busters at the country's largest carrier that led to the dismissal of two others last week.
Chief financial officer Xu Jiebo and deputy manager Zhou Yuehai had been removed from their posts and put under investigation for suspected "job-related crimes", China Southern said in a notice posted on the Shanghai stock exchange's website after the market closed yesterday. Xu, a director, also resigned from the board with immediate effect.
On Wednesday, the company announced the removal of executive vice-president Chen Gang and chief operating officer Tian Xiaodong for the same reason.
"We are feeling like the sky is falling," said a source at the airline after a month-long on-site inspection by the Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection that started in late November.
Xu is the most senior of the four executives dismissed so far and reported directly to China Southern chief Tan Wangeng. He had also previously reported to Tan's predecessor, Si Xianmin, who is now the chief of China Southern Group, which controls the listed company. "We don't know who Xu's fall may possibly lead to next," the source said.
China Southern is one of 13 state-owned enterprises and units that were examined by inspectors from the anti-graft agency in their third and most comprehensive round of inspections last year. The announcement of investigations into four senior PetroChina executives and Jiang Jiemin, former chairman of parent China National Petroleum Corp, one after another in similar fashion in the second half of last year heralded the year's biggest corruption scandal and the downfall of former security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who used to hold Jiang's post.