Philippines AirAsia Inc, a low-cost carrier based in Manila, is scheduled to start regular flights to Taiwan next month.
Philippines AirAsia, an affiliate of AirAsia Bhd, a low-cost airline based in Malaysia, is planning to launch its services between Manila and Taipei on Nov. 1 with seven flights per week.
The Philippine carrier, which is a joint venture between three Philippine investors and AirAsia International Ltd, is also planning to provide three flights between Taipei and Cebu per week, starting on Nov. 4.
Photo: Reuters
Meanwhile, Hong Kong Express Airways Ltd, a low-fare airline based in Hong Kong, is planning to launch regular flight services between the territory and Hualien on Dec. 6, with three flights a week.
Hong Kong Express currently provides regular flights between Hong Kong and Taichung.
Nineteen budget carriers operate in the Taiwanese market after V Air (威航), a subsidiary of Taiwanese mid-sized international carrier TransAsia Airways (復興航空), ended its services on Oct. 1 as a result of massive losses.
In Taiwan, only one Taiwan-based budget airline — Tigerair Taiwan (台灣虎航), a joint venture between Tiger Airways Singapore Pty Ltd and Taiwan’s China Airlines (CAL, 中華航空) — remains operational, but it is struggling financially, while the other 18 competitors are based overseas.
CAL chairman Ho Nuan-hsuan (何煖軒) confirmed that the parent company has set up a task force to study the future of Tigerair Taiwan. The joint venture agreement between Tigerair Taiwan and Tiger Airways is scheduled to expire in April next year.
With the arrival of Philippines AirAsia, the number of low-cost carriers operating in Taiwan will rise to 20, indicating that the closure of V Air has not deterred foreign budget carriers from entering the market.
V Air launched its services in December 2014, three months after Tigerair Taiwan was launched. Both eyed the booming budget carrier market, but V Air posted accumulated losses of about NT$900 million (US$28.59 million) and Tigerair Taiwan incurred losses of about NT$1.1 billion in less than two years, with the losses more than half the two carriers’ paid-in capital.
The budget airline business in Taiwan has continued to grow since budget carriers first began operating locally in 2004.
Budget airlines last year transported 4.7 million passengers, almost 13.5 percent of the total number of passengers handled by carriers operating in Taiwan, up from about 3 percent in 2012.
However, the losses incurred by V Air and Tigerair Taiwan indicate that Taiwanese budget carriers are unable to compete with their foreign counterparts.
Yeh Wei-chien (葉文建), an associate professor at Kainan University’s Department of Air Transport, said that the operating costs of locally based budget carriers have been higher than those of their foreign counterparts due to their relatively smaller size.
Market sources have expressed concern about the future of Tigerair Taiwan, because if the only remaining Taiwanese budget carrier closes, the local low-cost airline market will be dominated by foreign players.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
RSS