Tigerair Taiwan will add three new routes between Taichung and Japan and South Korea in July, the airline announced Wednesday, buoyed by growing demand as the travel industry rebounds from the doldrums of the COVID-19 pandemic. The airline said at its annual shareholders meeting that it will launch new routes between Taichung and Nagoya, Taichung and Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, and Taichung and Busan next month, which will bring the number of routes it operates to 38. The new routes come as Tigerair Taiwan, Taiwan’s only budget airline, continues to benefit from a resurgence in the travel industry in the past 12 months following three difficult years during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tigerair Taiwan said its revenue in the first five months of 2024 was up 50 percent year-over-year, and its first quarter revenue of NT$4.25 billion (US$131.24 million) was up 64 percent from the previous year. Also in the first quarter, its operating profit was NT$1.24 billion, up 124 percent from a year earlier. It had net income of NT$861 million and earnings per share of NT $1.92, helping offset deficits run up during the pandemic and pushing its book value per share higher to NT$11.35. Launched in 2014, Tigerair Taiwan now flies to 27 destinations in Asian countries and areas, including Japan, South Korea, Macau, Thailand and Vietnam.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
SEND A MESSAGE: Sinking the amphibious assault ship, the lead warship of its class, is meant to show China the US Navy is capable of sinking their ships, an analyst said The US and allied navies plan to sink a 40,000-tonne ship at the latest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to simulate defeating a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. This year’s RIMPAC — the 29th iteration of the world’s largest naval exercise — involves the US, 28 partners, more than 25,000 personnel, 40 warships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft operating in and around Hawaii from yesterday to Aug. 1, the US Navy said in a press release. The major components of the event include multidomain warfare exercises in multiship surface engagements, anti-submarine warfare and multi-axis defense of a carrier strike
Passengers aboard Korean Airlines Flight KE189 arrived in Taichung safely yesterday after a scare the previous day encountering uncontrolled decompression, which injured 13 passengers. Flight KE189 departed from Incheon at 4:45pm on Saturday bound for Taichung with 125 passengers on board. The flight was above Jeju Island when a fault in the pressurization system occurred 50 minutes after takeoff. Online flight tracker Flightradar24’s data show that the plane dropped more than 8,000 meters within 15 minutes, before it returned and landed back at Incheon Airport at 19:38pm. Thirteen passengers on board had a headache or earache due to the incident and were hospitalized. A different
China might seek to isolate Taiwan and weaken its economy through a “quarantine,” which would make it difficult for the US to respond and force Taipei to negotiate on unification, CNN reported on Saturday. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “increasingly bellicose actions” toward Taiwan have heightened concerns that Beijing would use its military against Taiwan, it said, citing a report by think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). However, China might choose to initiate a quarantine, rather than a military invasion of Taiwan, to avoid US involvement, it said. “A quarantine [is] a law enforcement-led operation to control
A new message broadcast on the Taipei MRT’s Wenhu (Brown) Line urging passengers to yield their seats to those in need, not necessarily elderly people, would be extended to other MRT lines and public transportation in the capital, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday. Chiang was responding to reporters’ questions on the sidelines of a news conference at Taipei City Hall promoting healthy walking. Several disputes over priority seats on public transportation have recently been reported, sparking debate about who qualifies to sit in them, as most of the cases involved elderly people asking young people to give up their