[6] Eddington joined the Swire Group in 1979, working for its subsidiary Cathay Pacific, before being appointed Managing Director in 1992.
He steered the company in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.[9] In 2003, he retired the British Airways Concorde, a move viewed as controversial.
Known as the Eddington Transport Study, it spelled out a plan to improve road and rail networks, as a "crucial enabler of sustained productivity and competitiveness".
In its conclusions, the report highlighted Britain's transport networks that provide the right connections, in the right places, to support the journeys that matter to economic performance.
[citation needed] At the launch of the report Eddington told journalists and transport industry representatives introducing road pricing to encourage drivers to drive less was an "economic no-brainer".
[14] The report also called for a programme of improvements to existing road and rail networks, the expansion of key airports, and adoption of the general principle that travellers should pay for the external costs of the pollution and congestion their journeys cause.
[17] In 2012 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) "for distinguished service to business and commerce through roles with a range of national and international economic, trade, infrastructure development and transport organisations",[18] and was also elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.
In 2015 he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese Government for his "contribution to strengthening the economic relations between Australia and Japan".