China Airlines (CAL,
Pre-tax profit was about NT$500 million, CAL General Manager Philips Wei (
With deliveries of new passenger and cargo planes this year, CAL is expected to register an all-time record of NT$89 billion in revenue for the whole of this year, barring any major incidents that could affect its operations such as another outbreak of SARS, Wei said.
Seven planes will join CAL's fleet in the next few months -- three A330-300 passenger planes in June, two B747-400F cargo planes in July and August and two B747-400 passenger planes by the end of this year.
The new planes will help CAL simplify its fleet, lowering operation costs by about 10 percent.
CAL opened several new routes last year, both for passenger and cargo flights.
Last year, it inaugurated new regular passenger services to Hanoi and Brisbane and launched historic charter flights to Seoul, as well as resuming services to Hawaii. This year, it plans to open new routes to Hiroshima, Seattle and Houston.
In terms of cargo travel, it started services to Ho Chih Minh City and reopened operations to Manchester and Delhi last year. It is planning to offer cargo services to other destinations in Europe and India later this year.
Affected by the outbreaks of SARS, CAL posted losses of NT$1 billion in the first half of last year and recorded profits of NT$2.7 billion in the second half, leaving the carrier with net earnings of NT$1.7 billion.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained