On 4 September 2023, French Major General Franck Mollard took over the command of EATC from German Major General Andreas Schick. The official change of command ceremony took place at the EATC headquarters at Eindhoven Airbase in the presence of representatives from EATC nations.
The change of command was under the lead of the Belgian Air Chief, Major General Thierry Dupont*, who thanked the outgoing commander, General Schick, for his commitment to EATC. General Dupont said “(...) with your focused approach, your vision and leadership, you managed to achieve many important results, among them the contribution of EATC in nations crisis response operations, the digitalization and the Lighthouse Project (LHP). (...) looking back you and EATC should be proud on the achievements”.
Major General Schick thanked among others the EATC staff for their support during his term. “I have been honored and grateful by the trust and confidence you placed upon me to lead this unique and fantastic multinational EATC team of experts during the last three years. Moreover, being a member of the EATC family for six years** (…) I’m very proud of you, how you handled this very challenging times. It’s only because of your professional behavior, your motivation, that we have managed to tackle all the challenges that we came through!”
At the end of the ceremony Major General Mollard took over the command. He thanked the nations for the great opportunity offered and for the trust and confidence placed in him. “It’s a great honor for me to have been entrusted by the Air chiefs of the member nations with the command of the EATC. I’m both honored and moved by this confidence and I hope I will meet the expectations of you”. He added “Close coordination and cooperation with our nations remains the key of success. We will contribute to work with the nations and for the nations, keeping as close as possible to their requests”.
On the same day German Brigadier General Frank Thomas Best took over the position of Chief of Staff from French Brigadier General Stephane Gourg.
Read Major General Mollard's biography here
Read Brigadier General Best’s biography here
*Major General Dupont is chairman of the “Multinational Air Transport Committee”, highest decision level board and composed of the air chiefs of EATC member nations.
**Major General Schick was EATC Chief of Staff from 2017 to 2020.