Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) is expected to take delivery of its first wide-body aircraft, an Airbus A330-900neo, in the middle of next month, before the plane is put into service in May, the carrier said yesterday.
The A330-900neo to be delivered is the first of eight to be operated by StarLux under a leasing deal, with three more of the model expected to arrive in Taiwan this year, it said.
Since Starlux’s first flights on Jan. 23, 2020, it has been operating a fleet of leased Airbus A321neos, the sixth of which arrived in Taiwan on Jan. 2, the airline wrote on Facebook.
Photo courtesy of StarLux Airlines Co
Starlux operates flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to destinations including Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Macau, Osaka, Penang, Singapore and Tokyo, and is to launch new services to Fukuoka, Japan, next month.
Starlux plans to deploy the A330-900neo on routes to key capitals in Asia, such as Singapore and Bangkok, a plan first unveiled in late 2019, when it was considering introducing the Airbus model.
The carrier said it was still in talks with the plane maker on delivery of 17 Airbus A350s, which it ordered in March 2019 and were to begin being delivered late last year.
Starlux said it hoped to have its first A350 aircraft in the middle of this year.
As part of an introduction of the new A330-900neo, Starlux yesterday began selling merchandise specially produced for the model, including a travel pillow and a key chain that looks like a plane’s seatbelt.
The merchandise is available on Starlux’s Web site, as well as at a cobranded 7-Eleven store near Nanjing Fuxing MRT station in Taipei and the carrier’s shop at the Honhui Plaza (宏匯廣場) shopping mall in New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District (新莊), it said.
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