Thai Smile Airways, a budget carrier under Thai Airways’ corporate umbrella, is planning to offer services between Kaohsiung and Bangkok to capitalize on a surge in Thai tourists visiting Taiwan, sources in Thailand said.
If the plan proceeds, it will be the airline’s first route serving Taiwan since it began operations in 2012 and will also break the monopoly on the route held by China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), one of Taiwan’s two biggest carriers.
The service will likely be launched in the second half of this year, but no firm timetable has been set for flights at a time when more Thai tourists are visiting Taiwan, the sources said.
The number of Thai nationals who visited Taiwan last year rose by nearly 60 percent from the previous year to 195,640, helped by a one-year visa-waiver program for Thai visitors that was started in August.
The visa-free treatment, which also covers Brunei nationals, was part of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) efforts to forge closer ties with ASEAN and India as part of the government’s “new southbound policy,” which aims to reduce Taiwan’s economic dependence on China.
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS