Chairman of Taiwan's leading aircraft carrier China Airlines (CAL) resigned yesterday, a few days after successful weekend charter flights across the strait.

Ringo K. S. Chao, chairman of China Airlines, submitted a letter of resignation to the board of directors and the Airline Career Development Association yesterday on personal grounds, saying that his mission of tackling the CAL's maintenance and safety issues had been completed.

Chao's resignation was effective yesterday while his successor will be elected by the board later this week, according to Bruce Chen, spokesman of the government-affiliated airlines.

In October 2007, Chao replaced Phillip Wei as CAL's youngest chairman in a management reshuffle following an accident in which a Boeing 737-800 exploded in a fireball after landing at the main airport on Japan's Okinawa island, although no casualties were reported in the accident.

It was a major setback for CAL after a total of nine fatal accidents had been reported since 1970.

This April, Chao was questioned by lawmakers for a controversial transaction involving 20 A350 jetliners ordered from the aircraft manufacturer Airbus that cost nearly NT$1 billion more than the previous chairman Wei evaluated

CAL's spokesman Chen refused to comment on whether this had led to Chao's resignation though.